The Short Victorious Vor
by Tel-Writing
Summary: A young Admiral Naismith finds himself a pawn in a greater game... but who's playing who? A somewhat deadpan parody of Baen... tropes.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Characters are the property of their respective creators. This is an unlicensed parody  
**Summary:** The beginnings of a game, with a star system and more at stake.  
**Vorkosigan Saga timeframe: **Between _Brothers in Arms_ and _Mirror Dance_  
**Honorverse timeframe:** After _Honor Among Enemies_, with slight canon tweaks  
**Note:** periodically eats the scenebreaks on this story and I've gotten sick of fixing them. If this is an issue for you, please read the correctly formatted version on Archive of Our Own.

_One would not think that Empire could survive  
As starships Roman cavalry displace;  
The politics of Space must needs derive  
From Einstein's time, Planck's heat, and Riemann's Space..._

_-John M. Ford_

Admiral Naismith growled. He was being herded.

There was no other word for it. A Cetagandan destroyer sat casually athwart the wormhole to his rear. A pair of their fast couriers played hunting dogs, a heavy cruiser the huntmaster. An elegant trap, elegantly sprung, and what little commercial shipping was in this system was steering subtly clear.

They were so screwed.

"Maybe we could send our shuttle off on a ballistic course while they're busy blowing the _Ariel_, and try to talk our way aboard one of the neutral freighters?" Captain Thorne suggested.

Miles shook his head. The couriers were keeping close enough station to them that that simply wouldn't work. "The tac comp says no."

"The tac comp's saying no to everything. Your call, Admiral," Thorne said.

There was a non-trivial probability that Miles himself would survive capture by his adversaries, but the Cetagandans considered the whole Dendarii fleet pirates, and would have no compunction about shooting Thorne's crew on principle. Miles rubbed his nose, trying not to betray his bleak thoughts. "Stall," he said finally.

"Stall _how_?" Thorne asked.

"The usual way. I have some favors I can pull in." Bel gave him a sideways look. "If we can hold out a couple weeks, the messages I sent out through the jump-relay network might reach either more of our folks or allies." A Barrayaran convey escort would be ideal, however much it might blow his cover. Getting captured by the Cetagandans would blow his cover in a significantly more unpleasant fashion.

"Might," Thorne said. "In a couple weeks?" Battles were dances, and the Ariel was faster than either of the Cetagandan warships, but not faster than the flanking fast couriers. It outgunned the fast couriers, but not the warships. A decisive close-range engagement could be delayed for quite some time, but not forever. "What about _their_ reinforcements?"

"They don't know I'm here."

"You don't know they don't know you're here."

True enough. Miles crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared across the tactical map, before switching to the Nexus display. The system they were in had four wormholes, but only the two Cetagandan-guarded ones went anywhere interesting. He called up the bare survey reports from the other two. One led to a starless area of open space, not a place one wanted to play hide and seek in. It was too easy to lose track of a wormhole terminus hurtling through the voids between stars. Wormholes bound to a star system through five-space interactions were much safer.

The second, more distant wormhole, led to an extended binary star system with fourteen very boring planets. Some independent had spent a fortune mapping it out on a hunch, but hadn't found any other wormholes through. It was a guaranteed dead end, but a dead end with a lot more places to hide than this planetless expanse with its swelled, blood-red sun.

"There," he said, pointing at the terminus. "We've got a minefield beacon, right? Drop it before we go through, see if they want to risk a ship." If a wormhole exit wasn't clear of all debris, a ship transiting in was almost guaranteed to be destroyed.

"Do you want to actually mine it?" Bel asked.

"No. Unfortunately, we may need the shuttle, and we don't have anything else big enough," Miles said. "But it may give them pause."

Bel handed off the orders to the tactics computer. The dance would spin out for another three or four days. The fast couriers, placed so as to easily intercept them on the way to either of the two guarded wormholes, couldn't beat them to the third wormhole without coming into range of the _Ariel_'s weapons. They didn't want to do that, not without backup.

Miles stared down at the tactics plot, his thoughts dark and tangled. He caught Bel watching him with a worried wrinkle between its eyes, and attempted a reassuring smile. The hermaphrodite straightened, smiling back. They were alone in the small ship's tactics room.

"So, if we're all going to die anyway…," it started, one elegantly shaped eyebrow arching up in unmistakable invitation.

Miles cleared his throat. "We're not dead yet."

The _Atlas_-class passenger liner RMMS _Artemis_ cruised towards the Gregor A wormhole terminus. There were still scars where it had been raked by Havenite fire, and it was not the beautiful example of Hauptman Cartel craftsmanship it once had been. But it had served, and would serve, its purpose.

The Manticorans in New Berlin had discovered that it was faster and more efficient to repair the swift passenger liner's hyper nodes than for its battered passengers to take commercial or other passage home. Trade magnate Klaus Hauptman had graciously offered to carry the remnants of the crew of Honor Harrington's wrecked Q-ship HMS _Wayfarer_ all the way to the Manticore system. A warship would have been even faster, but with Trevor's Star not yet taken Manticore had no warships to spare. While the Andermani yards had done an excellent job on the hyper nodes, the _Artemis_ still needed a complete refit in a Manticoran yard before it could take commercial passengers, so the gracious offer was not costing Hauptman anything in addition to what it would normally have cost him to get the ship home.

BuPers would spare no time in splitting up the much-needed _Wayfarer_ crew to new postings and new assignments once their current leisurely cruise was at an end. Manpower was at a premium. Only their battered captain would be spared. Having 'inherited' Samantha, the pregnant treecat mate of her bonded companion Nimitz, Honor would be going on maternity leave on her home planet of Sphinx until the kittens were born. It wouldn't be long now, until her seniority pushed her into a flag rank. Indeed, it was possible she'd never be merely a starship captain again.

The Manticorans were not the only passengers on this vessel. To Honor's irritation, she'd been forced to eat her word to her prisoners from the People's Republic of Haven. She'd promised them release in Andermani space – it'd been approved, even – but the Office of Navel Intelligence had partially countermanded the ambassador's approval. The crews had still been let go there, but the officers were to be released through Trevor's Star. After military interrogation in the Manticore system, of course.

The Havenites – Citizen Commander Caslet, Citizen Captain Holtz, and their surviving staff - had taken this in stone-faced stride. In addition to enduring additional interrogation, they'd also be getting home much ahead of schedule, and facing the music there sooner. Defeat was looked at with suspicion in the People's Republic, as there was a sense that the truly patriotic should find a way to win, regardless of the odds.

Honor stood on the bridge, as a spectator, not the captain. Margaret Fuchien, the vessel's civilian captain, was as good an officer as most in the Royal Manticoran Navy and better than no small number. Honor's treecat, pried away from his bereaved mate, perched on her shoulder, tasting the emotions of the crew. There was nothing here Honor could criticize, especially not after the efforts Fuchien and her people had gone to on her behalf. Focus and smooth professionalism were the rule. You didn't get to be bridge crew on one of Klaus Hauptman's luxury passenger liners if you were easily unnerved by important guests.

It would be good to be home, if Sphinx still was home. Honor was torn now between two worlds, two governments. Her obligations to her adopted world of Grayson would consume her again soon enough.

Fuchien oversaw the configuration of the Warshawski sails in preparation for their transit. As its turn came, the ship smoothly made the transition, riding the wormhole grav wave home.

"Admiral, you'd better get up here," Bel's voice crackled over the shipboard com. Rousing in a military instant, Miles threw on some undress grays. He stared at the mirror, decided to skip depilation, and arrowed down the hall to the tactics room. The jump had happened during his sleep cycle, disturbing his dreams as usual. The first Cetagandans couldn't possibly jump through for (he glanced at a chrono) another half-hour yet.

The smothering blanket of depression that had hovered over him lifted slightly as he wandered into the tactics room. Bel had this look on its face that it only got when something really neat was going on.

"They falsified the survey!" it grinned.

"Who did what now?" Miles asked, not quite awake.

"Take a look at this. A freighter's sensors wouldn't pick it up, but take a look."

It took a couple hard looks at both the sensor images and the survey figures for Miles to figure out what Bel was talking about. The planet sizes matched. Anyone who wasn't looking to land might overlook that… two? Two of the supposedly extremely boring worlds orbiting this half of the binary were clearly life-supporting by the spectra.

"Pirate base, you think?" he asked. Not necessarily a bad thing. He'd be willing to temporarily hook up with a batch of pirates if they could help him get the Cetagandan Navy off his back.

Bel shrugged.

"We've led the Cetas right to this, though," Miles added a bit more soberly. "It's close enough that they might just grab it. Two terraformable worlds is a major prize."

"Three," Bel said.

"Three?"

"One of the ones around the other sun looks suspicious to me."

"Huh," Miles said. "Are we picking up anything?"

"I might have got some radio from one of the worlds, but it's hard to say. I also spotted an ephemeral flash from way out-system, but it might have been a glitch."

"Well, let's try to find some friends," Miles said. "We'll surely need them."

The Junction forts had gone missing.

That had been Honor's first blank impression, hours back. It had been wrong, though. It was actually the Star Kingdom that had gone missing.

Manticore A and B still orbited each other in a distant, majestic dance. The worlds of Manticore, Sphinx, and Gryphon still circled their parent stars. But no impeller signatures graced their plot, no communications were in evidence, and the far planets seemed entirely unscarred by either civilization or war. Nothing.

Their first thought was that their systems had failed, but it soon became clear that something much stranger had occurred. Streams of normal commercial traffic had been strung out in front of and behind them before the transit, but all those ships were missing too. It was an empty, lonely visage.

It took them a little while to find the small, impellerless space platform lurking in their wake. When hailed, it apologized profusely and said it was still working on the science.

It wasn't pirates. It was worse. It was _physicists_.

Depressingly, they were unarmed.

The Manticore Wormhole Junction was light-hours from Manticore A, an easy cruise for the sleek liner. After an urgent discussion with the engineering crew, it was decided that until the possibility of an undetected imperfection in the Warshawski sails could be eliminated, attempting to re-transit was inadvisable. Even assuming this Junction had the same approaches as the one that was supposed to be here also was not without its hazards. The _Artemis_ was a passenger liner, not a survey vessel. They also, as Hauptman noted, would be coming in outside the usual transit patterns, possibly leading to an accident. When such cosmic energies and forces were involved, accidents were not to be courted.

The engineers checked the engines, the techs checked the controls, and grudgingly Captain Harrington permitted Hauptman to draft Citizen Lieutenant Commander Shannon Foraker from the Haven POWs to figure out if anything had gone wrong with the computers. There was something about Foraker that made Honor uneasy, most likely the sense she got from Nimitz that the Peep tac officer was far too bright for her own good.

One could hardly draft Foraker without admitting to the POWs (and the small contingent of non-military non-crew aboard) that something had gone terribly wrong. However, they'd have realized that soon in any case. The prisoners were tense. Haven had secret prison camps, it was said, where it disappeared men and women, and surely they suspected treachery here. Honor suspected, however, that some of them might find a Manticoran POW camp secretly preferable to going home.

So they wandered slowly sunward over the course of a day or so, not daring to take a shortcut in hyper. Hauptman, Honor, and their entourages had been invited to visit the main settlement in this system by its mysterious inhabitants.

Honor had considered just seizing the craft near this Junction and forcing its inhabitants to divulge its secrets, but currently they had an excess of Marines and a shortage of assault craft. Klaus Hauptman, of all people, had pointed out that starting a war with a culture that had the power to disrupt the Wormhole Junction was perhaps not the wisest idea. But Hauptman and his daughter were who they were, and clearly they were already thinking of trade possibilities, and more. The distorted grav waves showed that a wormhole junction was still present. Where did the termini lead from here? Was there an empty Beowulf to discover, an empty Trevor's Star?

There had to be some way of turning this to Manticore's strategic advantage, Honor thought, and it likely started with annexing this odd mirror system. But the first priority was getting back, and to get back they had to learn how they'd got here.

Time passed. The _Artemis_ swung into orbit over a familiar yet unfamiliar planet. There were ships here, a handful of them – two small intrasystem craft no larger than a large LAC. One was transmitting some form of non-standard identification code, while the other, smaller one was running silent and was extremely difficult to spot. They moved seamlessly through space. Clearly they had some form of inertial compensators, for the grav sensors were picking up something this close, but the _Artemis_ didn't pick up the bold signatures of impeller wedges even when they were moving. The speed of the pseudo-LACs was glacial, their maneuverability equally so.

She was on the bridge when the larger vessel hailed them.

"Unidentified vessel, this is ghem-Captain Elern of the Cetagandan Imperial cruiser _Cyrene_," a male voice said. The video signal was shortly deciphered by the _Artemis's_ computers, revealing a brown-skinned, serious-looking man in a black uniform and lurid facepaint. "Please state your intentions in this system."

Calm words, for a man whose ship was outmassed so vastly. But maybe they'd spotted the _Artemis_ for a civilian craft. _Artemis_'s armament wasn't civilian, though, and Honor suspected ('cruiser' or not) she could easily take this 'Cyrene'.

Hauptman leaned forward, taking the call. "_Cyrene_, this is the RMMS _Artemis_," he said. "Klaus Hauptman, owner. We are currently here by invitation of the planet's inhabitants, but please be aware that the Star Kingdom of Manticore has a pre-existing territorial claim to this system."

"No such claim is recognized among the interstellar powers," the… Cetagandan? countered. "Neither, I believe, is any government of that name."

Hauptman's eyebrows rose. He glanced sideways at Honor. They _were_ lost. But they'd known that by the empty system where their homeworlds were supposed to be,.

"We look forward to peaceful interaction between our two nations," Hauptman offered. Honor was suddenly uneasily aware that the magnate seemed to have appointed himself ambassador. Not necessarily a good thing. Perhaps she should have insisted on taking the call.

"We have also now received an invitation," the Cetagandan said. "I look forward to making your acquaintance, Hauptman of the _Artemis_. Perhaps our governments' interests may coincide, now or in the future."

"If I may ask, ghem-Captain," Hauptman asked courteously, "what is your business in the system?"

"Ah," Elern said. "As it happens, we are pirate-hunting."

The _Ariel's_ shuttle was stealthed near the tiny colony's power plant, about the only place it could hide its emissions. They had one, blessed, advantage – the colony's inhabitants, like Bel and Miles, were Betans. It instantly got them the benefit of the doubt.

It was a small colony, though, and one that could be swallowed by the Cetagandans without a blink. Unregistered, too, so Beta Colony likely wouldn't make too much of a fuss. As to why it was unregistered, the colonists were evasive in that peculiar Betan way that betrayed something big was afoot.

It also seemed like half of them were five-space physicists, retired five-space physicists, or jump pilots. That worried Miles. By definition, these people were both smarter and crazier than he was. They had to be, to play with wormhole math.

Bel was in orbit, keeping on the other side of the planet from the Cetagandan cruiser. Miles was downside, with Taura and her squad. No use getting the Ariel's crew killed in a ground fight, or Green Squad killed in a space fight. He'd given Bel tacit permission to sell him out if it became necessary to save his own skin and the skins of the rest of the crew.

The Cetagandans had become more cautious, though, as they'd spotted the kilometers-wide distortion approaching from deep out-system, cutting through space with absurd velocity. Its deceleration into planetary orbit was incredible, a few hundred gravities, far in excess of what even the swiftest known warships could accomplish. As it neared, they got a glimpse of the ship itself through its distorting veils. It was well over three-quarters of a kilometer long beneath its odd, shrouding veils, and deeply phallic. A mystery wrapped in a mystery, and an urgent intelligence priority.

Happily, the colonists were willing to employ Miles. He was the only person on the planet who had any idea how to plan an official banquet.

_Honor Hornblower_, the name tag on the table read.

Eyebrows raised, she picked up the tag and showed it to Rafe Cardones, who cracked a smile, and then to Hauptman, who looked blank. Hauptman's daughter and Captain Fuchien had remained in orbit on the _Artemis_ in case of treachery.

They were in what looked like a small gymnasium/auditorium, attached to the colony's small school. The artificial floor was smooth and polished, with markings for various sports. A flimsy curtain partitioned a stage from the rest of the room. One of Honor's armsmen was back there, checking the theater equipment for bombs or hidden enemies.

The Cetagandan delegation (ghem-Captain Elern, a hardfaced man who had been introduced to them as ghem-Major Liu, and a set of men who looked like subordinates or bodyguards) seemed to be having similar difficulties with their nametags, but Honor didn't know enough about their culture to understand exactly what the issue was. There was real anger, however. Some obscure slight of precedence had occurred involving the two ranking officers, apparently baffling the colonists.

Of her own guards, Honor had only three armsmen, as well as Nimitz and Samantha. She had been reluctant to take Samantha, but she needed Nimitz's talents badly. While Samantha had recovered on the surface from the death of her companion Harold Tschu, her pain was bone-deep, and separating her from her mate now would have been cruelty.

Honor studied the black uniforms of the men across the table curiously. There were no women in the group, which set off alarm bells in her head. The officers could be distinguished by their extremely elaborate face paint, which seemed to vary by rank. They showed no surprise at a woman in uniform, however, and their accents, while archaic, were understandable.

The dinner seemed slapshod and poorly put together by formal Manticoran standards, with little ceremony and that done badly. It was a small colony, though, and perhaps no insult was intended. It was fascinating to see a Manticore essentially unmolded by civilization, and to see what had been lost over the years. Outside this little settlement, the world was vast and empty.

The head of the colony was an elderly, quite absent-minded man named Steve Andersen, who gave the impression that he really just wanted them all to go away but realized he was heavily outgunned. Social events clearly weren't his specialty, which begged the question of what was. It was clear the humans of the colony were pre-prolong, though she was less certain about the Cetagandans.

During the adequate but not spectacular meal, Honor looked up to see ghem-Captain Elern considering her and her uniform carefully. She and Cardones were in Manticoran black and gold, her armsmen were in green, and Hauptman was in civilian dress.

"Is there something I can help you with, ghem-Captain?" she asked. The ghem- appeared to be an integral part of the title, but there was no clue to what it meant.

"I merely wished to express my admiration of your ship, Captain Harrington. It is rare to see such a beautiful and well-handled vessel in our patrols."

"Oh," she said, "it's not my ship. I'm merely a passenger."

The ghem-Captain smiled. "I have never heard of your kingdom, Captain Harrington. Is it very large?"

"Not by some standards," Honor said. "But our wormholes make us influential." She smiled back over her plate. "And our military skill is second to none. As for your own empire?"

"Eight core worlds, and many systems beside."

"Not large, then," she said. The Cetagandan's eyebrows rose, and he gave her a considering look. Her reaction seemed to surprise him.

"You said you had a claim to this system," he said. "Yet Andersen says that he's never heard of you. A curiosity, that."

"I was born here," she said. "My companions as well. It is our home."

"Not this world, I assume."

"I'm actually from Sphinx, the next planet out. As is Nimitz, here."

"I see," he said, studying the treecat with thoughtful curiosity. The cats had been given seats of their own, since they had been on the guest list Honor had sent down. Neither the colony head nor ghem-Captain Elern had made more than polite comments on their presence yet, though Honor sensed they were more curious than they were letting on. Nimitz looked up and bleeked at the Cetagandan before going back to his meal, showing off his table manners. Had they realized yet that he was an intelligent creature in his own right?

"Our main worlds are significantly more developed," Honor added.

"A wormhole's jump away?" Elern asked, seeming amused.

She smiled.

Elern sighed. "This complicated things. I am in pursuit of a pirate named Miles Naismith. I dearly hope that your people have not chosen to give him safe haven. That would be unfortunate for all concerned."

"I can't say I've ever heard of the man," Honor said honestly. "But I'm not friends with pirates."

"Ah? Well, he's hard to miss. He's very short. If you should happen to see him…?"

Honor made a neutral noise, and glanced sideways as she felt something odd through Nimitz. She was just in time to see Samantha disappear under the table, and felt the treecat eel past her legs. Honor frowned as the treecat darted up the steps to the stage, and reached out with her true-hands to pull the curtain aside. The only person back there should be…

A spike of alarm went through her as she realized the armsman that was supposed to be guarding that area was unconscious. She'd sensed no malice from back there, no murderous intent, but they had company. Two armored individuals looked up as the treecat hopped through the opening. A small man scrambled back, and a tall woman surged forward with extraordinary speed.

Through Nimitz, Honor could feel how poundingly loud the glow of one of the minds was, a maelstrom of emotion – surprise and increasing alarm. Samantha's gaze and mental focus locked on him, and she bounded forward. Honor could feel herself being drawn in as Samantha attuned to him, and him to her. She struggled free, trying to close off her perception, but it took effort to focus.

The tall woman in armor had reflexes faster than anyone in the room. Before anyone could say a word, her weapon was out. As Samantha arrowed into the smaller person's arms, she fired.

Confusion. Honor reached for her own sidearm in sheer spinal reflex. Nimitz should have reacted before now, should have warned her. Her guards drew, and the woman fired, taking one down. LaFollet dived for her, and a second shot hit him. Nimitz bleeked in startlement and worry but didn't join the fray, instead hurtling towards Samantha.

The Cetagandans were on their feet now. A blue bolt hissed through the air, blowing a hole in the wall behind the stage. Another hit the armored woman, but stopped with a loud snapping sound and left her unharmed. Elern went for what Honor thought was the panic button on his comlink. The woman fired, fired, and fired again without pause, hitting her targets with surgical precision. The last one collapsed before the first even hit the floor. All unconscious, Honor realized through Nimitz. She stayed still, not wishing to draw fire.

The armored man, meanwhile, was staring down at the fallen cat with complete confusion on his shrouded face. He took a step back as Nimitz approached. The treecat sniffed at his mate in alarm, then curled up protectively beside her.

"Damnit," the man said under his breath. He took two steps forward, looked down at Samantha in complete bafflement, then came down the stairs into the room. He kept glancing backwards as he did, though he seemed not to realize he was doing so. His gaze swept curiously across Honor, Cardones, and Hauptman.

Demands for information were now coming from the Cetagandan communication link. The short man – he was even shorter than she'd first thought, little taller than Benjamin Mayhew's senior wife - jogged over and picked it up, cracking his helmet open.

"Half-stunned, I'm sorry," he said imitating Elern's intonation precisely. "We were ambushed. Major Liu and his team are pursuing. We expect resolution shortly." He listened calmly to the reply. Out of the corner of her eye, Honor saw more armored individuals gliding through the hall nearby. By feel, two of the meal servers also belonged to Naismith's faction, such as it was. "No, I think not," he continued. "This is well in hand."

He turned off the comlink. "'Do you want an orbital bombardment?'" he said in an incredulous, mocking tone, staring down at it in disbelief. He shook his head and without apparently thinking about it turned to walk back up the stairs.

"Mmm," the larger woman said. Now that she was off the stage, Honor realized just how tall she actually was. The smaller man barely came to her waist, which made her most of two and a half meters. No human had those reflexes, and even though she was aware of her own genetic background Honor felt unease as she realized that she was in the presence of an actual genie supersoldier. "Time to skip town. Ah… Admiral?"

The 'Admiral' looked down at his feet, frowned, and stared up at the stage with narrowed eyes. Andersen of the colonists was blinking and frowning.

"Excuse me," Honor said with arctic chill, gently removing LaFollet's unconscious body from her lap. Standing, she drew herself to her full height. "I don't believe you were invited to this dinner."

A lopsided grin flickered across the smaller man's features. "I'm catering staff," he said. Seeing her lack of amusement, he gave her an almost aristocratic bow. "My apologies for the inconvenience. That was much less elegant than I'd planned."

"I thought we'd agreed to avoid shooting people," Andersen said a little anxiously.

"Yes, sorry," the commander said, sounding mildly frustrated as he looked down at the Cetagandan officers. "I had Liu halfway to re-declaring that clan vendetta, too. They'd have been shooting _each other_ by the dessert course." He frowned, then squared his shoulders. "Well, best laid plans. We'll cope."

Beaten by a _cat_. The Great and Powerful Oz must have felt like this, Miles thought darkly, running through the tactical situation in his head. The Cetagandan lieutenant had sounded so _enthusiastic_ about orbital bombardment. And his cruiser, Bel informed, was in position to block an orbital pick-up.

Theoretically, he had hostages. Theoretically, he could try to force a negotiated settlement. Practically… the situation was less clear, and things would come to a head again soon.

There were more players in the game than him and the Cetagandans, of course. Dismissing from his mind the continuing nagging sense that he should be going over _there_, he took off his helmet, sliding off the nerve disruptor net hood as well.

"Hi," he said smoothly as he walked up to the woman who seemed to be, if not actually in charge, the most influential person present. She was in her mid-twenties at the latest, with Eurasian features and a cool, unimpressed gaze. "I'm…"

"…Miles Naismith," she said.

He brightened. "Oh, you've heard of me!" There was the faintest flicker of contempt in her eyes in response to that. He stiffened.

"Do you want me to wake any of these people up?" Green Squad's medic asked.

Miles thought about that. Ghem-Major Liu's death squad, Elern, and possibly Elern's XO would all have the allergy treatment, which limited his options. "Interrogate the Cetagandan ghem-lieutenant," he said, scratching his itching nose. Harrington was watching him. "And...hm. Give the men in green some synergine too." He frowned. "The rest – you have something that'll put them out for a long time, right?"

"Right," she said. Green Squad had coalesced in the room now, and were sorting out and disarming the Cetas. Miles frowned, realizing he had completely lost his train of thought again. He didn't understand why he was so off his game right now.

There was a hiss from the stage. Miles whirled, a sudden defensiveness coming over him. The six-legged creature that hadn't been stunned was bristling. "Danio, step away from the cat!" he snapped, starting up the stairs again. Both the creature – Nimitz, he remembered from the guest list - and Danio settled back on their feet.

"Bleek!" the creature said, clearly scolding.

"I'm busy!" Miles snapped back, and immediately felt very silly for doing so. He crouched down and took off his armored glove to check the vital signs on the other, stunned creature. Alive, yes, very much so. He ran his fingers thoughtfully through her fur, and then, on instinct, picked her up and clutched her to him.

Yeah, that felt right. His brain kicked back into its groove as he headed back down to the makeshift dining room. The creature was not exactly portable, and Miles had to sort of drape her over him to make it work. She was close to a quarter his weight, he figured. Looked sort of Sergyaran, with the six legs.

Taura had that look on her face she got when she was pointedly not commenting on something. Miles ignored her. The other cat trotted tamely at his heels.

Harrington watched this interplay, a peculiar expression on her face. It was wiped clean almost instantly, however – she was nearly as good at looking blank as a haut-lady.

"These Cetagandans," she asked. "If they catch you, will they kill you?" She had a nice voice, Miles noted vaguely, a clear soprano. He wondered if she sang.

"Ah… yes." Honesty compelled him to add, "Or do other severely unpleasant things to me instead." He wrinkled his nose, holding back a sneeze.

"Why?" she asked.

He thought about Dagoola, about Vervain and the dozen skirmishes since. "It's _complicated_," he said helplessly.

The creature Nimitz flowed up the table, climbing up to Harrington's shoulder and clinging with long ivory claws. He made a scolding noise at her, and she frowned.

"I want you to come aboard my vessel," she said abruptly. Miles looked cautiously interested. This could actually solve a number of his currently intractable tactical problems. Taura growled, gold eyes burning in distrust. "You're clearly unable to escape on your own, and unfortunately I now have a personal interest in ensuring your safety."


	2. Chapter 2

The ship's daycycle was off from the groundside one, so the interrupted dinner had essentially been breakfast for Honor. Naismith had been more cooperative than she'd expected, though he'd insisted on sharing a cabin with his bodyguard. The three of them had disappeared inside and not emerged since. Some time in that period, Samantha's dull unconsciousness had shifted to normal treecat sleep, much to Honor's personal relief. The unborn kittens seemed to have weathered the shock as well.

Honor's day had been busy. She'd found herself in the role of hostage negotiator, dictating terms from a position of strength. The 'Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet' had surrendered the Cetagandan captain to her in exchange for her forcing the Cetagandans to permit the lift of their ground personnel to orbit.

The factions were clearly highly inclined to shoot at each other on sight, and she wanted to minimize civilian casualties. The battlecruiser-sized passenger liner helped underline her authority. She had the impression that an almost kilometer-long ship was outside either faction's personal experience.

Samantha was awake now, and Nimitz wished to visit her. She was admitted to Naismith's assigned quarters without particular ceremony, one of her armsmen preceding her into the room. The enormous genengineered bodyguard stationed in the suite's living area looked down calmly at the four of them. Her eyes flicked over each of the armsmen in turn as LaFollet stared at her. From Nimitz's sudden unease, she was considering the best way to kill each of them. Honor had never suspected she'd ever feel her armsman detail was inadequate security, but in this case the caution on both sides seemed warranted.

"Yeah, come in," Naismith said from the bedroom beyond. As a passenger liner, the _Artemis_ had a surfeit of luxury quarters. Samantha strolled out to greet Nimitz, and Naismith followed, pulling on his uniform shirt. His armor lay discarded in the room beyond, while his bodyguard still wore hers. Both had been disarmed before coming aboard.

The man had the most astonishing collection of scars, briefly visible above the neckline of his black undershirt as he sealed his uniform top. "Yes, Captain Harrington?" he asked.

"This is Samantha's life support module," she said, motioning for another armsman to bring it in. "If we're in a battle or other emergency, it'll support her in case of loss of atmosphere. If you leave the ship, you can take it with you, but it's important that you understand how to operate it."

"…right," he said. "I should say I've realized you've been altering my mental processes. It's an interesting experience from the inside. What do you hope to gain by this?"

"I had nothing to do with it." Honor said. "The treecats make their own choices, however inconvenient they might be. You've been adopted, Admiral." She smiled, crouching down to rub Nimitz behind the ears, letting her mask slip. "It's a rare and wonderful thing, as you're surely learning. I realize you're not familiar with the phenomenon, so I included a rundown on Sphinxian treecats with the documentation for the life support module. It may answer some of your questions."

Naismith eyebrows lifted. "So who's really in charge? Is there some sort of massive treecat conspiracy that runs your planet?" His eyes crinkled with interest.

Honor paused, aware what the hesitation looked like but trying to find the right way to defuse his concerns. "The treecats are under the protection of the crown," she said. "You must understand, adoption is very rare, particularly of offworlders. The humans are usually the dominant part of the pairing. Treecats rarely survive the death of their person, and involuntary separation causes severe trauma to both parties."

Unhappy ear flicks from the treecats. She wouldn't normally have brought up this topic in front of Samantha, who had lost her engineer companion not very long ago at all.

"You didn't actually answer my question about vast treecat conspiracies," Naismith said.

"The royal family has been adoptees for some time, but…" Naismith had an 'aha!' face. "It's not like that," she said quickly. "Treecats don't really think in terms of our power structures. They're attracted to mental patterns. All adoptees understand that protecting the treecats from those who would exploit them is important."

Now he was quiet. "Mental patterns?" he asked carefully.

"They're empaths," she said bluntly. He was not as surprised as she thought he'd be. "They can sense human emotions, and they use other senses to talk among themselves."

"She is intelligent then," he said. "Of course, I knew that."

"She's also pregnant," Honor said.

Naismith reached out, and Samantha flowed over to him. He put a hand on her back, then ran his fingers down her stomach until he found the telltale lump. He gave her a hard look (softened by the normal new adoptee silliness), and then glanced at Nimitz.

"Nimitz is the father, yes." She hesitated. "He and Samantha are life mates."

"So your treecat is married to my treecat." He looked up at her, and for the first time she sensed his carefully banked sexual interest.

"Yes…" she said.

"Does that mean _we_…?"

"No."

A faint smile flickered across Naismith's features. "I was wondering, because this is starting to sound like a bad fantasy novel."

"Samantha's due in four T-months," Honor said. "Some provision will have to be made for the care and socialization of her kittens, but we can talk about that later." She looked up, and, er, further up at his bodyguard. "Until then… do you spar, Sergeant?"

From Admiral Naismith's expression, he thought this was a terrible idea, though his reaction was nothing on Andrew LaFollet's horror. Even Honor was tempted to rethink things when she saw the vicious, red-enameled claws and thick, enormously strong fingers the sergeant's armored gloves had concealed. The sergeant herself was coolly amused but by no means overconfident as they proceeded to the ship's salle.

It was the exercise period for the imprisoned Peep officers, though the ships gymnasium complex was large enough that the salle was empty. The _Artemis_ even had a swimming pool, for heaven's sake, a bourgeoisie luxury that the prisoners had taken no time in acquiring a taste for.

Most humans even nearing Sergeant Taura's height were hopelessly crippled by some condition or other, or else flimsy light-worlders with bones like china. Honor had often sparred against smaller opponents, but never one so large. That was part of her motivation in asking for the bout – it was a new challenge, and the experience might some day serve her well.

Honor herself was the descendant of genetically modified individuals, giving her superhuman strength and reflexes and the ability to live comfortably in heavy gravity. She suspected Sergeant Taura's inheritance was much less distant and much more combat oriented. She read the muscles in the enormous, protruding jaw, and realized that it was designed specifically to rip throats out. It was like someone had crossed a human with a hexapuma. Not reassuring.

Even Nimitz was looking a little worried. She gave him a reassuring rub. They wouldn't be going full contact. She had a dinner reception tonight and the bruises would show.

Miles's interest in the sparring match was instantly superseded the instant he met the other woman's eyes across the salle. The two female combatants were still circling, feeling each other out. Harrington moved like a fighter, and she must have a high idea of her own abilities to even suggest something like this, but she was going to get _pounded_. That bothered Miles, who had old-fashioned views about women getting their noses smashed in. He didn't actually feel like watching.

The other woman was young, tall, and gawky, with a long face. She was not precisely pretty, though her eyes were a striking blue. Exuding nonchalance, Miles wandered over towards her. She was in a different, plainer uniform, neither the Star Kingdom black-and-gold nor the green uniforms of Harrington's armsmen (did armsman just mean bodyguard here? he had to find that out). The woman's equally young companion was in yet another uniform, this one red and black.

"Hi," he said ingratiatingly.

She blinked down at him, looking at his gray uniform, trying to read the rank insignia. Dendarii combat fatigues weren't much for gold frog, but uniforms were similar enough that some level of mutual rank comprehension could be generally be achieved. She was a high-ranking junior officer or a low-ranking senior officer, he thought. The man next to her instantly pegged him as a flag officer and frowned in confusion.

"Citizen Commissioner Jourdain," he said, holding out his hand. He wore no rank insignia at all. "This is Citizen Lieutenant Commander Foraker. Are you a prisoner of Captain Harrington?" His clear curiosity was tempered by his unconscious protectiveness of his companion.

"Admiral Naismith," he said. "As for the second question, that's a bit unclear at this point." He considered them with great interest. "Are you?"

"We're currently prisoners of war, yes."

"From what government?" he asked. Both of them blinked at him, baffled. This was clearly something he was expected to _know_.

"The People's Republic of Haven," Jourdain said slowly. Miles made an understanding noise to hide his complete nonrecognition. "And you, Admiral?"

"Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, Commanding," he said. There was a whirl of motion behind him as the combatants engaged. He watched out of the corner of his eye. Yes, Harrington was good, but she wasn't _that_ good. As Miles had reason to know, Taura combined incredible strength with equally incredible flexibility. Hard to pin, nearly impossible to immobilize, fast as lightning, and built like a tank. Her biological heritage wasn't fully human, and anyone fighting her like it was - he smiled tightly as Harrington slammed to the mat – would take a fall.

Harrington was learning, though, and Miles wondered if Taura's advantage over her would last. Her armsmen were watching the interplay anxiously. So was the guard not-too-subtly attached to the people from Haven. Miles met Jourdain's eye as they both realized the short, unobserved window for information exchange.

"The Manticorans seem to be lost," Jourdain said in a quiet voice. "Can you confirm that?"

"I can confirm I have no idea what they're doing here," Miles said. "Do you know what they were doing before they got here?"

"Going to their home system," Jourdain said. "Where are we?"

"Nowhere important. It's only got a chart number. Off the Zoave Twilight-Vega Station route." Jourdain looked blank, then frowned and went silent as Samantha approached.

Foraker gave a guilty sideways look towards Harrington and then crouched, holding out a hand. Samantha blinked at her, putting her whiskers forward, then ambled over for a comfortable scritch.

"Shannon, you really shouldn't be…" Jourdain started.

"It's fine," Miles said. "She likes being touched." He hadn't needed Treecats 101 to know that.

"It's that she's Captain Harrington's animal," Jourdain said.

"She's not an animal," Foraker said. "She's clearly intelligent. It's pretty awful what the Manties do to their client species."

"She's a _status symbol_," the commissioner replied disapprovingly.

Miles's eyebrows went up. One of Samantha's ears twitched back. Uh-oh.

Indeed, Harrington had bowed out of the match, and was bearing down on them with the inevitability of the heat death of the universe. She looked refreshed from the exercise, nearly glowing, though she was walking a bit awkwardly. Taura strode to her normal post as his shadow. The people from Haven went silent as Harrington approached. Jourdain seemed more nervous than Foraker.

"And what, precisely, is going on here?" the captain asked ominously.

"I was just inviting Citizen Lieutenant Commander Foraker and her friend to dinner, Captain Harrington," Miles said without missing a beat. Well, he'd been about to.

"You'll be dining with me, Admiral Naismith. You and ghem-Captain Elern and your Captain Thorne." News to Miles. His eyebrows twitched up again.

"That's all very nice," he said, wondering how far he could push her, "but as you see, I have plans." Foraker was looking at him with surprise.

A somewhat stormy silence. "The prisoners are not free to accept any invitation of yours."

"Well, you could invite them then," Miles said reasonably. Citizen Commissioner Jourdain swallowed.

Harrington looked at Nimitz. Nimitz looked at Samantha. Samantha looked at Miles.

"From my perspective," Miles added, "you seem to be de facto annexing a system you have no real right to. I'd like as many independent witnesses to your negotiations as possible." A pause. "Or I won't participate."

Her eyes narrowed at him. He met her stare evenly, uncomfortably aware of the precariousness of his position.

"Citizen Lieutenant Commander Foraker," Harrington said crisply. "You and Citizen Commissioner Jourdain will report to my quarters for dinner in two hours."

Foraker had reached back down to pet Samantha again. "Yessir," she said absently. Harrington looked strained, and Jourdain physically winced.

Miles smiled slightly, but his smile died when Harrington turned to fix him with those cold almond eyes of hers.

"As for you, Admiral Naismith – I would caution you to pick your allies and your enemies wisely."

The dinner _Artemis_'s kitchen had produced was stellar, but though Hauptman's people knew their stuff, he himself wasn't invited to this event. Honor wished to run this without civilian interference.

Nimitz sat to her right, with Samantha beyond and Naismith and his captain next to them. The Cetagandan captain was to her left, and then Rafe Cardones. The colony leader Andersen was next to him and across from Naismith, while the two Havenites had been accommodated near the foot of the table. Lieutenant Tremaine had been brought in at the last minute as a buffer between them and Naismith and to ensure the Manticorans outnumbered their prisoners here.

She still hadn't been able to figure out whether Naismith's Captain Thorne was a man or a woman. It was bothering her.

Naismith's gaze had thoughtfully settled on the Harrington sword on the wall early in the meal. She could tell he had questions, but he was stifling them. She wondered if it wouldn't help to underline her social status a little, but it was rarer and rarer these days to encounter someone who had never heard of her. She found his attitude both refreshing and frustrating, though she suspected her armsmen had a different opinion.

Citizen Commissioner Jourdain was quiet as a mouse as a foot of the table, carefully listening. Her faint hope that he might know something more about these people than she did had been quashed. Foraker and Tremaine were getting on quite well, despite the presence of a StateSec People's Commissioner sitting next to her. Honor would have been more cautious in her shoes, but whatever else she was Shannon Foraker was not politically astute.

The really interesting interplay was between Naismith and the Cetagandans. And Thorne as well, she supposed – the captain was clearly experienced at being the admiral's straight man. The Havenites and ghem-Captain Elern were too far from each other to easily converse, which was quite on purpose. Eventually, the ghem-Captain leaned over and politely asked Honor who they represented.

"They're my prisoners of war," she told him calmly. "I captured their vessel some time back, and another vessel as well."

Elern seemed to be wondering if that was a warning or not. She certainly intended it as such.

"_Really_," Thorne said, eyes gleaming. The captain's head craned down the table to look at Foraker and Jourdain. Foraker stared back fearlessly.

"Yes, um, Captain," the Havenite said.

"Now, _Miles_ has POW stories…" Captain Thorne said leadingly.

Naismith none-too-subtly kicked his subordinate under the table, but rose to the bait. "That's true," he said "I spent about six weeks in a Cetagandan prisoner of war camp once. An educational experience, mostly on the differences between the letter and the spirit of interstellar agreements on the treatment of prisoners."

Elern was clearly not happy with this turn of the discussion, but Thorne's grin was practically feral. So, looking up, was the lurking Sergeant Taura's.

"They were unable to keep me there," Naismith continued. "Or any of my ten thousand companions." His smile now matched those of his subordinates. "But you must understand that there's a certain extent to which the Cetagandan Empire has always been unable to find its ass with both hands. That catastrophic attempted invasion of Vervain, for instance. Marilac is looking pretty catastrophic these days too." Elern took a deep breath, but said nothing.

"But that's not the business that we came here to discuss," Naismith continued. "Mr. Andersen has a claim on this system, by right of first colonization. Ghem-Captain Elern is currently blockading this system, and perhaps intends to conquer it. You, Captain Harrington, claim it is yours, despite there being no evidence for that whatsoever. Unless we wish to fight this out – and I think, Captain Elern, you do not wish to do so - we must come to a settlement."

"I do not care about the colony, Captain Harrington," Elern said. "I want Naismith. If you give him to me, I will leave."

"I will consider your request," Honor said. "Regardless of whether you leave or not, however, I will enforce the Manticoran claim on this system."

"What's the actual basis of your claim, Captain Harrington?" Naismith asked.

She blinked. It was a question she hadn't been expecting. Of course Manticore belonged to the Manticorans! The odd colony clearly predated her arrival in this version of the system, but she believed there would be no issue in integrating the Betan colonists into the Star Kingdom should they ever re-establish contact. "Colonization, I suppose," she said.

"And what about the rights of the indigenous population?" Naismith asked.

She wrinkled her forehead. "The treecats are under the protection of the Crown."

"But they were here first," Naismith said patiently.

"We didn't conquer them," Honor said. "They're the willing subjects of Her Majesty."

"I'm coming from the principle that this system by right and law ought to belong to the treecats," Naismith said. "They may wish to become subjects of your Queen, I don't know. I do note, however, that you haven't asked them."

Foraker was trying not to laugh.

"The treecats don't have a central government," Honor said with increasing irritation. "Nor any interest in interstellar politics. Nor any ability to defend the system from its enemies."

"Excuse me, Captain," Elern said to her. "Are you saying these… treecats… are sentient aliens?" He sounded skeptical. As one, Nimitz and Samantha turned to stare evenly at him.

"They are," Naismith said.

Andersen blinked. "But that means there's human ri… something rights issues involved! We must inform the Survey at once! This is incredible!"

"So, for the record, you'd be willing to live under a treecat government," Naismith said.

"If it's their system," Andersen said cheerfully. Thorne was nodding in agreement. Honor exchanged a baffled look with her XO. She'd never thought she'd meet a colonist who was positively thrilled to be displaced from the ownership of their planet.

"_Betans_," the Cetagandan captain was muttering under his breath.

"The treecats don't have a government." Honor attempted to return order to the conversation.

"Maybe you haven't been looking hard enough," Naismith said. "Anyway, if they really don't have one _I_ think we should appoint Samantha Empress to save argument."

It was so hard to tell when he was joking. The ability to read his emotions wasn't actually helping her any, either. She wondered if the treecats were successfully following the conversation.

"That's absurd," she said.

"Why?" Naismith's grin was fierce. "She's clearly the most qualified treecat in the room."

Thorne laughed, and something snapped into focus for Honor as she realized what had been bothering her about Naismith's captain (other than the obvious gender confusion). The captain was not young. Well, perhaps Thorne was young compared to Andersen, but every Manticoran on the ship looked younger. That meant… Nimitz's ears lay flat as he sensed Honor's deep alarm, and Samantha picked up on it too.

"How old are you, Admiral?" she asked bluntly.

His chin jerked up, surprised. "That's a personal question," he said. "How old are you?"

"I'm fifty-one Terran years," she said. The Cetagandan's eyebrows went up, and he seemed to be reconsidering her more favorably in light of this revelation. Honor tried to modulate her tone to be less demanding. "Please tell me. It's important."

It was clear he didn't want to. His eyes flicked sideways to Elern. "Um," he said. Slightly… embarrassed? Thorne, for whatever reason, was looking extremely entertained.

She cocked an eyebrow.

"I really don't know for sure." Naismith said.

"Are you older than twenty-five?" There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Samantha was a young treecat, perhaps half Nimitz's age. If Naismith was too old to take prolong, she would surely have to face the death of a second bondmate.

"Do you mean biologically, or chronologically, or what?"

"Please just answer the question." The ghem-captain seemed peculiarly fascinated with this discussion.

"It's a really hard question," he said. "Um. I'm maybe twenty-four. That's a very rough estimate with high uncertainty. All of the documentation is gone, I made sure of it. Chronologically, I am certainly no more than twenty-six. Biologically, I have no idea. I spent a short period of time in cold storage after a major injury, I've had artificial growth acceleration and retardation during my childhood, and I've done some relativistic travel." He thought a bit. "No, actually, I'm wrong about the chronological part. I'm no more than twenty five right now based on the date of, er, mutual conception. My brother claims to be twenty-six, but he was born premature and they put him back in a replicator for five months to cook."

Everybody was staring at Naismith now except Captain Thorne. The Admiral _looked_ young, but with his... deformities confusing the issue she hadn't actually expected him to be _that_ young. "Twenty-four seems a bit young for fleet command," Honor said carefully. "Though I admit I haven't seen your fleet."

"The fleet's ranged from eleven to twenty-three ships," Naismith said, "I started with nineteen eight years ago."

"When you were… sixteen," she said.

"He started with one unarmed vessel, actually." Thorne said. "In four months he'd won a system-scale war that his side was losing badly when he got there, and had nineteen interstellar warships sworn to him."

Thorne, at least, was telling the truth. Naismith's smile was crisp. "You have to understand, Captain Harrington," he said, "that I am very, very good at what I do."

Harrington corralled him after the dinner, a tense urgency in her step. "You're coming with me right now," she said. "No arguments. This is important."

"Why?" Miles asked. Taura and Harrington's armsmen engaged in their usual territorial posturing as he trotted to keep up with her.

"We need to give you the primer treatment to begin prolong, and we need to give it to you right now. If your story is right, you're marginal, and we can't waste a day."

"What's prolong?" he asked.

She frowned at him. "It's a life extension therapy. The primer will slow your physical aging for a year or two and ready your body for subsequent treatments."

He was suddenly extremely alert. "But what's the hurry?"

"There's a limited timeframe prolong can be administered in. It rarely, if ever works past age twenty-five. For the full treatment series you need a dedicated medical facility, but I know Hauptman has some primer treatments in his medical stores as neobarbarian bribes. You're too old for anything except the first-generation treatment, but that is much better than nothing."

"That's not what I meant."

"Treecats live longer than humans. Samantha is a young treecat, and she will live another century and a half or more. If you die of old age before then, it will probably kill her. With the full treatment, your lifespans will be similar."

Miles was silent a moment. "I'm not very likely to die of old age, Captain Harrington. But I appreciate the thought." He was unsure he wanted to surrender himself to this vessel's sickbay. Simon Illyan would certainly object. Simon Illyan wasn't here, though.

He was suddenly aware of his bodyguard's shadow looming over him. If this treatment was all Harrington claimed – would it help Taura?

"Two treatments," he said. "Or none."

Harrington gave him a sharp look. "You and… a lover? A friend?"

_Yes. To both._ "Sergeant Taura is nearing the end of her engineered lifespan. She has artificial youth until she goes into total organ failure. Our surgeons currently estimate she has another year and a half, if that." They'd been wrong before, but they wouldn't be wrong forever. He stopped, forcing Harrington to slow her long strides and turn. "She's nineteen, Captain." Screw pride, he would beg if he had to. "Please."

Harrington gave Taura a long searching look. Unfortunately, it happened so far above his head that Miles couldn't tell what was passing between them.

"Of course, Admiral," she said in her quiet soprano. For the first time, he perceived respect in her eyes, and soft sympathy. There was a woman behind the mask. He'd wondered a little.

"Thank you." Goddamnit, he was not going to cry in front of this woman. "Thank you," he repeated more quietly, ducking his head.

If she saw him lose his composure, she was kind enough not to comment.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't enough to get back to Manticore, Honor thought, if that even was possible. She had to find out why this had happened and make sure it wasn't going to happen again. If whatever had happened was replicable, it could be used to effortlessly divert any of the billions of tons of shipping that went through the heaviest-traveled wormhole junction in the galaxy every week. It could be used to bypass Manticore completely, sending a fleet from Trevor's Star direct to Basilisk. She'd had a dream about Basilisk last night, of Peep SDs burning through the Basilisk defenses from both sides. The wormhole junction was the beating heart of the Star Kingdom. It could not be allowed to be compromised.

She had an objective, now, but achieving it was something else entirely. Thorne was conspiring with the colonists behind her back, that much was clear. Her only leverage on the Dendarii captain was her continued custody of Admiral Naismith. Admittedly, there was also her probable ability to blow his ship up whenever she wanted, but the negotiations hadn't quite reached that stage yet.

She read the forensic identification summaries she'd requested on Naismith and his bodyguard over her morning cocoa. Naismith was more or less baseline human, although there were no specific planetary heritage telltales the forensic computer recognized. He was of primarily European descent and showed evidence of eugenic modification in some of his ancestors.

Sergeant Taura was… significantly nonhuman. The scan seemed to indicate that she was not one of the Ukranian supersoldier types that had wrecked Earth in the Final War and still survived in small enclaves. Her enhancements were expert and completely integrated into her genome. Clearly, someone was thumbing their nose at the Beowulf Code, but since there was no Mesan barcode on her tongue, it wasn't the obvious suspects. Another headache.

She didn't have a Manticoran criminal database to compare them to right now, but somehow she suspected neither of them were in it.

She stood, and Nimitz climbed to her shoulder. It was only courteous to visit her guests after their treatment. Naismith hadn't actually wanted it, he'd only done it for the sake of his bodyguard. _Nineteen_. Somebody should be shot for that, Honor thought darkly.

Naismith was awake when she entered, lying shirtless on a hospital bed with Samantha curled up on top of him. His face was alight with energy as he combed his crooked fingers through her hair and murmured into her ear. As he saw her, though, he desisted, propping himself up on one elbow and craning his neck to see over the large bundle of fur on his chest. A pair of what seemed to be small air filters had been inserted into his nose.

Honor shook her head quietly. An astonishingly vast set of allergies and intolerances had been transmitted from his ship, much more complete than the one he'd provided the kitchens. The physician had appended three additional ones, including 'treecat'.

She almost had to laugh. Oh, that poor man. A treecat and their adopted person became almost an extension of each others bodies, especially in the early months, burrowing into each other in their hunger for skin-to-skin physical contact. Naismith had a surprising amount of self control despite his slightly frivolous exterior, but he and Samantha were clearly going to be no exception to the rule.

Her faint smile faded as he transferred Samantha to his lap, sitting up to give Honor a considering look. He was covered in scars and signs of horrific past violence. He'd apparently been tortured at least once, as well as knifed, beaten, lacerated and burnt on numerous other occasions. Many of the scars were surgically neat, as if somebody had tried to flay the skin off his bones.

"How are you feeling?" she said.

"No different." Her gaze was eliciting mixed emotional reactions from him that ranged from slightly shy discomfort to suppressed secret hilarity.

"I have some scars on my ass too, if you want me to take my pants off," he said dryly as her stare continued. Honor felt a tiny flush come over her features. Andrew LaFollet stiffened beside her.

"I'm sorry," she said, deciding it was her place to apologize. "I didn't mean to be rude."

"It's fine," he said. "How is Sergeant Taura?"

"We don't have a good baseline for her, I've been told," Honor told him. "Without that, it's hard to tell if the primer treatment had any effect."

"Wait and see, then," he sighed. "Nothing new." She sensed a sudden weariness from him. Samantha rubbed against his chest, then hopped to the floor to cheerfully greet Nimitz.

Naismith brushed brown and white fur off him and reached for his dress uniform top. It had been delivered before the dinner by Captain Thorne. A jeweled dagger and belt had accompanied it, but were currently lying on the side table. He saw her eyes on it and suddenly grinned.

"Do you have an interest in this sort of weaponry? I saw the sword on your wall." He picked up the belt, and then glanced at LaFollet. The green-uniformed armsman stepped forward to take the dagger from Naismith and hand it disapprovingly to his lady.

She turned it over in her hand before removing it from the lizard-skin sheath. It was designed for a larger hand than Naismith's, and it was old. The blade was steel, but it looked as fine as the best Graysonian blades, and was clearly not mass-produced. The hilt was elaborately archaic, with cloisonné enamel in a gold filigree lacework and inlaid jewels. As she looked at the jewels, her eyebrows rose as she saw the natural imperfections in the stones.

The hilt showed the faint wear of many many years of use. The end of it opened with a clever mechanism, revealing a recessed area with a seal embossed. She thought she recognized the symbol from her military readings as an Ancient Canadian sigil. "What an artifact," she murmured. He nodded. She looked up as he shrugged the uniform undershirt on, noting a nearly unreadable band of scars shaped like joined numbers across his back.

He took the dagger back, careful to keep it pointing away from her at all times as he sheathed it and buckled the belt. He sat back on the hospital cot. Samantha twitched an alert ear and went to join him.

"I think she understands me," he said, looking up at her, "but I wish I could follow her better. There's got to be a more efficient way to communicate. Sign language, maybe. Or semaphore. I'll work on that in a week or so, when we've gotten to know each other better."

"Semaphore?" she asked, trying to hold back a grin.

"Naismith expects that every treecat will do her duty," he solemnly intoned. She couldn't keep herself from giggling. He grinned at her, and she could tell he was pleased he'd made her laugh.

"Nobody's managed to teach treecats how to read, yet," she mentioned. "They don't write things down."

He shrugged, and she sensed his supreme confidence that he'd figure out _something_. "There's a bigger issue, though. I mean, I share a language with you, Captain Harrington, but I'm increasingly unsure we have enough real shared context to communicate, outside maybe the Napoleonic Wars. That worries me, a lot."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, we can check... We've got Nelson in common, clearly. Let's work from there. Um…" He gave her a considering look. "T.E. Lawrence."

"Chester Nimitz," she replied. Naismith looked between her and her treecat and grinned suddenly.

"Rommel," he said.

"He wasn't as good as his PR," Honor interjected.

"Hah! You think public relations isn't war?" Naismith's eyes were bright. "I won't name Patton then."

Her lip twitched. "Onaha" she said, naming the head of the Lunar Revolt. His expression didn't change, but she tasted his non-comprehension.

"Sri Simka," he said.

"Yuri Tanakov," she murmured.

His head tilted. "Julia Corazoa."

"Gustav Anderman," she replied, and wondered what Naismith would look like in Andermani imperial military regalia. Probably something like an ancient caricature of Napoleon. She smiled privately at the thought.

"…Aral Vorkosigan," he concluded. She looked blank, and he sighed. "Yeah, we've lost each other somewhere along the way, haven't we?"

She laughed quietly. He grinned when she did so. "Early on actually. I don't want to think about what that means."

"Me either." He frowned. "How about planets? We can try planets, they're more permanent than people."

"My mother's from Beowulf," she said. Even someone from the barbarian fringes on the other side of the Solarian League would know Beowulf.

"Does that make you Grendel?" One of his eyebrows quirked.

She blinked at him, baffled for a second.

"Never mind…" Naismith shook his head. "No, I don't think I've heard of it."

"And you?" she asked. "Where are you from?"

"That's another one of those complicated questions," he said, dissembling. "Um, I have relatives on Beta Colony."

"That's where the colonists are from, isn't it? And Captain Thorne?" The accents matched.

"Yeah," Naismith said. He seemed uneasy. "Tell me about Beowulf?" he asked.

"It's one of Manticore's neighbors by wormhole," she said, "and one of the oldest and richest human planets. It's in the Sigma Draconis system. Hot and dry and not very well terraformed." A fractional smile crossed Naismith's face as something added up in his head, but otherwise he didn't betray himself at all. There was a terrifyingly brilliant mind under there, she thought, and forced herself to remember that.

"Insights?" she asked.

"I want to visit Sphinx," he said.

*

The world was different, Golden Voice thought.

Laughs Brightly stalked on the flat branch of the picket wood in front of her, the instinctive behavior of a hunter protecting his mate. Golden Voice walked slowly (though not as slowly as the humans below her), looking around and remembering.

She had a depth of memory rarely seen among the People, even the senior memory singers of the varied clans. But memory, worn smooth and tasteless by the years and the individuals it was passed between, was nothing on experience. She kept looking for the new plants the two-legs had brought, their shiny swift fliers in the sky. The world was wrong, and it worried her, for she herself was a memory singer. A memory singer could get lost in the memories, and forget the present.

But Laughs Brightly was with her, and Hides Badly walked beneath, and Dances on Clouds was there as well, with her hunter-guards. Mountain Roaring strode ahead. She was Hides Badly's hunter, and tall and fierce as a hexapuma.

The humans had left their vehicles behind – such noisy things would be sure to send the People running to their hiding places. It was strange to be attempting to lead two-legs to a nest. Such a thing was not done. But she thought it was time, and Hides Badly thought it was time as well. All of the People asked their bonded to keep the secret of the People, yet Golden Voice had not asked Hides Badly. She suspected he would not have listened in any case. Laughs Brightly was less certain that Golden Voice's course was the right one, but Laughs Brightly was a hunter, and her mate, and would defer.

There _were_ People here, strange People. She knew they sensed her before she sensed them, for her mind-glow had the unsurpassed strength of one who was both bonded and mated and a memory singer as well. She was having trouble finding the wispy glows of the other People, but she knew they were watching. Part of the problem was that Hides Badly was so loud, a young hunter without the controlled intensity of Dances on Clouds.

Or was her difficulty that the other minds were so muted? They were very very near to the nest now, near enough that the hunters had to challenge, and a trio flowed out onto the branches, mentally interrogating the two newcomers. Golden Voice was shocked at how reedy their voices were, how thin their mind-glows were, how lean and hungry they looked. It was the spring of the year, yet they had the signs of famine on their form.

They were baffled by the two-legs, and a shock ran through Golden Voice as she realized that these People had never met a two-legs, never even known them in song. They had never eaten the cluster-stalk, never grown plants for winter. They were as the People once were, hungry and defensive, and they did not know how narrow their horizons were. She let Laughs Brightly give his greetings, and then gave hers.

All of the hunters rose up, staring at her with their eyes and minds, shocked that a memory singer would ever leave her nest. More People were coming out of the woods, a wary clan uncertain if it should attack the invaders or not. Many lean, many half-crippled, all staring. They hissed down at Mountain Roaring, who watched them with narrow, suspicious yellow eyes.

She dropped from the picket wood to the ground, letting the strange People ring around her in the trees above. _I am Sings a New Song_, she told them, feeling their renewed shock as her memory singer's voice rang out with a strength they'd never heard before. Memory singers _never_ left their nest. Golden Voice had been the first, and much mourned by her clan.

But she was not Golden Voice now. She was Sings a New Song, for a memory singer could name herself, and none would dare argue.

She sang…

She sang of Climbs Quickly and of Death Fang's Bane, of the singers of old and their councils and decisions. She sang of the gripping need of some among the People to bond with the humans, and the rewards they got in return, in knowledge, food, and power. She sang of sowing and reaping, and a hundred innovations observed, copied, and sometimes improved upon.

The singers of the clans she had come from had urged stealth and caution. But she who was once Golden Voice had long since decided that it was time to forge a new path, that the ancient ways of the People would not suffice. They needed to end their long subservient hiding and make a place for themselves in the stars. She did not sing of the thoughtful consensus of her elders, but made a new song of her own devising.

The memory singers of the clan came out, creeping from the central nest, to hear. The kittens as well, for this was outside all of their experiences. But what one Person learns, all may learn, and Sings a New Song poured out centuries upon centuries of the new knowledge of the People into their minds.

This took a long time, into the night. Hides Badly lay on the ground, exhausted by the weight of the world beating down at him. Dances on Clouds watched with bright eyes, feeling but not understanding.

In the end, she told them the proposal of Dances on Clouds, for this world to be like the one of which she sang, with the humans living with the People and protecting the people. And then she told them of the proposal of Hides Badly, that the humans would live with the People and the People would protect the humans, and learn to travel the stars.

_This is a strange singing_, the senior memory singer said. _Your voice is strong, Sings a New Song. But I am disturbed, for a memory sung must be truth, yet you sing of things that are not._

_I sing of memory and possibility both,_ Sings a New Song told the senior singer. _You must tell the clans. And the clans must choose, each and every one._

*

"I told you she would make a great Empress," Miles said smugly. Harrington gave him a peculiarly exasperated look. Probably because she had the clearly inferior treecat. Samantha had been brilliant, even if he hadn't been able to really follow what was going on. Anybody who could walk into a forest full of hungry savages and end up with them hanging on to her every 'bleek' was obviously command material. He'd have to start training her to be a proper staff officer. Maybe a lieutenant's commission…

The massive gravity of the planet had finally overwhelmed him. Swallowing his pride, he'd asked Taura for a lift, and now sat across her shoulders as they walked back to the vehicles. Harrington and her guards seemed irritatingly unaffected. He looked up, following the brown and white blur of his companion. She looked down on him from the trees above, then carefully jumped down to join him on his high perch. She ran one of her true-hands through his hair and made an anxious noise at his weary lack of reaction.

"Nice planet," he sighed to her, "but I wouldn't want to live here."

*

It was amazing what could be found out from an emergency evacuation route posted on a door. Or a built-in entertainment system, for that matter. House arrest or not, Miles was in information overload. He wasn't liking what he was seeing, either.

Treecats. Cetagandans. Ghem-Captain Elern was blockading the system, and his commander and unknown reinforcements were lurking on the other side of the wormhole. Betans. He knew what Andersen and his folks were up to now, and wished he'd realized it earlier.

He needed to get Bel out. Actually, he needed to get the whole damn colony out before the Cetagandans realized they were a Betan military-applications research base and not a free love pilot commune. It was admittedly hard to tell the difference, but Elern was sharp. He'd pick up on it soon enough.

Miles had realized as soon as Harrington mentioned Sigma Draconis that this was something to do with the Betan Tangle. An invisible Gordian Knot of astronomical proportions, the odd five-space anomaly near Beta Colony was where physics theories went to die. Most of the major space science breakthroughs of the past millennium had happened due to continuing research on the Tangle.

If the Tangle crossed the light years to tie into some similar anomaly here, of course the Betans were investigating it, and of course they were keeping it secret. Harrington's words seemed to imply that the whole Tangle was some kind of new wormhole type. If so, there were incredible implications. This science must stay out of Cetagandan hands at all costs.

He had to talk to Andersen, and that meant he needed to go through Harrington. He wondered if she was sick of him yet. She kept checking in on him personally – it seemed something she could probably delegate if she wanted to, and she was letting him get away with quite a bit. He was beginning to realize he probably shouldn't have pushed her on inviting the POWs to dinner. He would need her esteem more than he needed theirs.

On a professional level, he reassured himself, and then snorted. He could hear Illyan's dry commentary in his head already. _Let's not lie to ourselves..._

He rose to pace. Samantha followed him for a few circuits of the room, and then hopped on the furniture and left him to work out his tension by himself. The treecats needed something like a week or two more to talk amongst themselves, he gathered, though he could be wrong about that. The Betans needed to figure out what they'd done wrong. He needed to figure out if he could play this to his advantage or if they were _all_ doomed.

Samantha, curled on the bed, twitched an ear up at him. Her intelligent eyes looked up at him alertly, and she tilted her dappled head.

_Empaths, huh._ He didn't want to get the runaround from Harrington's overprotective subordinates this time. "Could you ask Nimitz to request an audience with Captain Harrington for me, please, Samantha?" What was the range? Could she read his thoughts? He'd determined to his satisfaction that her spoken English comprehension was excellent.

She stretched. About twenty seconds later, the communication console equivalent in his room chimed. He grinned.

"Huh," Taura said. He could tell she suspected close surveillance as opposed to psychic powers. But Taura hadn't been in on the Terran-C op…

"Sh," He adjusted his uniform, glad Bel had sent his ribbons instead of the flashy Barrayaran-style full medal assortment he wore when he wanted to be underestimated.

"Admiral Naismith," Harrington said.

"Captain Harrington." He nodded. "Would it be possible to make an appointment to speak to you? I have some business I need to take care of aboard my own vessel, and I was hoping that you could see your way clear to letting me return aboard her."

Her face became closed. "We can discuss this," she said.

"I realize the situation is complicated, but I have a few ideas to resolve this stand-off that I want to follow up on. But I can't do that from here. If it would be possible for me to take a few moments of your time?"

"I will have an appointment scheduled, Admiral." Harrington could be frighteningly unreadable sometimes. "My steward will inform you."

"Thank you," he said, and sank down in his chair.

"Miles?" Taura said softly.

"What?" he asked.

She didn't look at him. "Be careful."

"What do you mean?"

Her large head craned around to look at him, mahogany hair braided in a coiled knot at the base of her neck. She was wearing a little gold decal on her cheekbone, meant to distract from the jutting strength of her jaw. "I mean..." her mouth clicked shut. She frowned.

"I'm not…" _trying to get into her pants? Yes you are._ "…being careless," he finished lamely. Taura had been silent so far on the subject, but he tried to avoid courting other women when she was shadowing. Mind, normally she scared all but the bravest away, but it was still a little insensitive of him. He didn't sleep with either her or Elli when he was 'on duty' as Admiral Naismith, but he still needed to respect her feelings.

His relationship with Taura was a private thing between the two of them, something he didn't expect anyone else to understand. He didn't want her to have to endure the inevitable jokes. She'd had to endure so much already.

_Or is it you who are ashamed of her?_ Ugly thought that, with a tiny grain of truth. He hadn't brought Taura home to Mother.

Samantha made a slightly worried noise. Taura was worried about him too, or she wouldn't have spoken up. Worried about him and Samantha and Harrington and the crazy situation they were all in, and what that meant for the fleet.

He met her eyes and nodded to show her he understood her unspoken concerns. "Thank you, Sergeant," he said, and he meant it.


	4. Chapter 4

"Admiral Naismith, Sergeant Taura, and Samantha, Milady," the green-uniformed man at the door said. He was one of the ones Taura had stunned earlier. His hand strayed to the weapon at his hip as they were admitted. Harrington had two bodyguards already in the room, something that didn't surprise Miles at this point. The Captain didn't seem to go anywhere without them.

It was the same room they'd had the dinner in, but partitions had been put back into place to separate areas out. Other than the sword and a few other artifacts, there was little of Harrington's personality impressed upon the former luxury cabin.

"Milady?" he asked. He'd noted her guards' use of the term in passing, and tried it out. She betrayed a tiny wince and he bit his tongue. "I'm glad you could see me on such short notice." He glanced at the sword, realizing it had moved since he'd last seen it.

She nodded at a seat, and he sat. Taura moved forward to shadow him, but was blocked by Harrington's chief armsman. Miles glanced back worriedly as she rose to full loom, brushing the ceiling. "Ah…" he said. "Perhaps Sergeant Taura and your armsmen could wait in the hall?"

"Perhaps that might be wise. Andrew, Jamie?" One of the junior men began to withdraw, but the chief stayed put. Harrington's expression cooled noticeably as she stared at him, until eventually he silently relented. He was the last to leave the room.

_Hopefully they won't kill each other out there_, Miles thought darkly. "Why are your bodyguards in a different uniform?" is what he actually asked his host. They weren't marines, which had been his initial theory.

She was silent. "They're my armsmen as Steadholder Harrington. I'm legally required to maintain them."

"Even aboard ship?" he asked. Barrayaran officers weren't permitted personal armsmen while in the Imperial Service.

"Everywhere."

He pursed his lips in rueful sympathy. "Sounds a bit feudal."

"Oh yes," she sighed. He stared at the sword. It slightly resembled the longer of the twin Vor blades, but was larger and more obviously Japanese in origin. Two-handed, it was designed for a person somewhat shorter than Harrington. "Is that a family heirloom?" he asked, nodding at it.

"It is now," she said. "It's the Harrington Sword."

"Do you know how to use it?" he asked. He became instantly aware that that had been a stupid question. She turned her head to look at it.

"The previous owner challenged me to trial by combat," she said.

Wait, _what_? "Does Manticore really do dueling? With swords?" His eyes were wide.

"Oh no," Harrington said. "Pistols."

He digested that. "How very nineteenth century," he choked. There was… oh dear… also a pistol on the wall.

"I'm the Protector's Champion on Grayson, though, as well as a steadholder" she said. "It's an allied world. I hadn't quite realized a steading was effectively a country when Benjamin Mayhew granted me one. The Star Kingdom is a little more centralized. But my obligations there include swordfights, yes. The sword is attached to the Grayson title."

"The Grayson title? How many titles do you have?"

"Ah…" she said. "I'm also Countess Harrington, but that's a bit irregular." She looked almost embarrassed. "A knighthood."

His eyebrows went up further. "Is there a Count Harrington?" he asked, greatly daring.

Harrington's gaze slipped to a cube on her desk. "No."

"I have to say I'm a little surprised," he said. "Normally the, um… governments that go for dueling and trial by combat and that sort of thing aren't noted for their egalitarian treatment of women."

Her lip twitched. "You are astute."

"Ah," he said, and fought a very stupid urge to offer to rescue her from the barbarians.

"That's one of the reasons I put up with the Graysonian… nonsense," Harrington added. "There's three woman to every man on Grayson. By being who I am, by breaking new ground, I can help change things there for them. It's a hard, hard world. But…" she frowned, the captain's mask slipping over her face again. "None of this was why you came to see me."

He watched her, controlling a surge of immense frustration. She would do amazingly on Barrayar, damnit. There was something Old Vor about her that he hadn't recognized before because it hadn't crossed his mind that it'd be there. A deep mental kinship.

But he _couldn't_ drag her home to his insane, marginal, feudal world, because some brilliant bastard had apparently recognized her talents and beaten him to the punch. His eyes narrowed. _Benjamin Mayhew, I think I hate you._

"Yes," he said. "Your ship can travel from here to Sigma Draconis, right? Whatever's in your system is mirrored here."

She frowned at him. "Why?" Not immediately volunteering an answer.

"The colony needs to evacuate. The Cetagandans are probably going to try to starve them out with their blockade, and they're not self-sufficient. There's only about two thousand of them. I need to evacuate too. This system is not safe for me." He hesitated. "Because of that it's not safe for Samantha either."

"I am not sure I should pick sides here, Admiral. In particular, I am not sure I should pick _your_ side."

He grinned. Sensible woman. "They're being quiet about it, but I think they've got some idea about how you got here, which means they might have some idea about how to get you home."

It was the only bait he had that she'd take, and he'd rather she take it by negotiation than force. He'd noticed her marines were in a state of increased readiness, and there were easily enough of them to sack a scientific outpost.

"They haven't been particularly cooperative," Harrington said. "What makes you think they'll cooperate now?"

"If you can get them home – and Beta Colony in Sigma Draconis is home to them – I think you may find that they'll be more willing to cooperate than if you leave them here at the mercy of a not-necessarily friendly empire."

She nodded thoughtfully. He wondered what she was thinking.

***

"The system needs a Necklin rod setup to properly generate the five-space fields," Andersen said. "And a jump pilot."

"Thank God," Miles said. "That's the best news I've heard all day." The Necklin drive had to be one of the least intuitive pieces of technology ever, even if you knew the math. Also one of, if not _the_ most difficult to reverse engineer. More to the point, Captain Harrington didn't have one. There wasn't any room on the evacuation diagrams, and her ship was far, far bigger than the largest theoretically stable rod setup. "It wasn't on her ship when it went, through, right. So it doesn't need to be on her ship?"

The colony leader frowned. "Admiral Naismith…" he said, "this really isn't your business, yeah?"

"I'm trying to figure out everyone's options here, including mine." A thought struck him. "Um, we can send her back where she came from, right? It doesn't go to a different universe every time?"

"There seems to be some hypersymmetry," Andersen said, which was probably a 'yes, we can'. He was Betan, and not a great liar.

If the Tangle was a door, this piece of Betan technology was the key. Miles's picture of exactly what was behind that door was unclear, but he'd gotten enough broad hints that he understood the urgent need to slam that door shut and put as many padlocks on it as possible until they'd fully digested the implications. Ideally with Harrington on this side, but she wouldn't stand for that. Eventually the gloves would come off.

"She's told me she can reach Beta Colony from here, through the Tangle. And she has enough long range warheads to make a real mess there if you don't let her go home. My feeling is that your discoveries here need to be conveyed to the appropriate authorities as soon as possible. Both on the tech level and the sapient species level, because unless contested, the Cetagandans are likely going to quietly annex this system." Miles opened a hand. "Even if you have to blow your prototypes instead of abandoning them here, you can reconstruct them if you have the people, right?"

The Betan frowned at him.

"And," Miles said, smiling tightly, "her small boats have her sublight drive tech. If we work it so she leaves them behind with you in the course of the evacuation…" It'd give Beta Colony a tech edge, but Beta Colony was the one government in the Nexus that could be trusted not to use such a tech edge to invade all their neighbors. In the enormous 'us vs. them' that this new portal created, Beta was definitely an 'us', and it'd be useful to have the planet owing him that huge a favor.

"Do you think she would really?" Andersen was following his train of thought now, a hot technological hunger in his eyes.

"Not on purpose. But I'm not sure she'd realize that's what she'd be doing…"

*

"…the only thing I'm unsure about it the timing," Miles finished smoothly, back in Harrington's office. "I don't know how long it'll take you to reach Sigma Draconis, drop off everybody, and get back with the skeleton crew for the experimental platform. I'm assuming for this that you can do it before the Cetagandans reach the platform out there."

"Interesting," Harrington said. She leaned forward. "A few obvious flaws I see, though. For one, I think you need to have the… technological device… placed in your ship instead of leaving it here on the platform."

"That doesn't actually change the tactical-" He stopped.

"Sixty-nine point three meters long," she said conversationally, in the tone of somebody who had a very, very good radar map of his hull. "Thirty-three meter maximum beam. It's a little tight, but you actually fit in our largest boat bay."

He'd written off the _Ariel_. Miles gave her a weak smile as his mind raced, going through the implications. If they could get to Beta Colony, and then send Harrington back to her Manticore along the Tangle from there… wait.

Harrington had this look on her face of quiet satisfaction, like Miles's father when a hard-fought political battle in the Counts had fallen out to his advantage. It snapped into place. She wasn't planning to let him go home, and she had the ability to take him and the technology with her. Oh, _shit_.

And then something hit him like a mental brick, and Miles's eyes widened in stunned, belated realization.

The marriage of Admiral Vorkosigan and Captain Naismith had shaped his life in unconscious ways. They had had a great strange courtship, culminating with his mother had leaving her career and her family behind to emigrate to Barrayar. Miles had long thought her wooing had been Admiral Vorkosigan's greatest and most lasting victory, and the one upon which all of his subsequent achievements were grounded. Like his father, Miles was now Lord Vorkosigan, and it was his duty to find a wife. He'd long taken it as a personal challenge to bring home a woman as worthy of his house as Cordelia Naismith had been.

It had been a major priority in his disastrous early teenage trip to Beta Colony, the object of his long courtship with Elli Quinn, the secret obstacle between him and the dying Taura. Most of his many loves had been in the same mode – tall, competent women, born to lead, who could match him like his mother matched his father. Even his hopeless loves, like Empress the haut Rian…

But in all his dreams and plans for how this would come to pass, he'd never, ever thought he'd find himself playing his _mother's_ part in that old dance.

"Well, Captain Harrington," he heard his voice say, "if you want to hire my ship, then we can certainly begin contract negotiations."

***

After the first five minutes, Honor called in Klaus Hauptman to help her. After the first half hour, he called in the _Artemis_'s civilian lawyer, who looked extremely pained when asked about Manticoran laws involving mercenaries. After a bit of dicing about the technical definition of an armed merchant ship, Honor's obligations as a Crown officer, and the unlikelihood of any contract being ratified by the Queen, Honor rubbed her head.

"Grayson law, then. That has to be easier."

"I don't know anything about that," the lawyer said. Naismith watched him with narrow eyes. Samantha was in his lap, and he was stroking her head. Her tail was coiled around one of his legs.

"Andrew?" she asked. LaFollet could quote everything in the Constitution about an armsman's role, but he seemed lost in the legal issues that applied to other people. She couldn't make a misstep here. Naismith was sharp, and she'd sensed his cool willingness to destroy the device rather than accept a deal that imperiled himself or left his ship legally vulnerable to seizure by her government.

One of Honor's immediate goals was to prevent the device from interfering with Manticoran shipping, but another was to get her crew, her prisoners, and Captain Fuchien's crew and passengers home. Klaus Hauptman and his daughter were pre-eminent in Manticore's merchant establishment. Losing them would be a terrible blow. Getting the information back that it was possible for a foreign party to attack wormhole shipping was as critical as getting the people home, too.

What they needed, and what she was negotiating for, was a ceasefire. Even if they couldn't pry the device out of Naismith's tight grip (and he seemed utterly confident that she couldn't steal it from him), if she brought it with her it couldn't be used against Manticore until they figured out how to reconstruct it. It would buy them all years, years Manticore needed with Haven's threat looming.

Five years, she insisted. Five years was long enough for treekittens to become reasonably independent, long enough to complete the critical first few years of Naismith's prolong treatments, and hopefully long enough for the Haven situation to settle down (though she was not optimistic there). Naismith was shocked, having grown up without prolong. He wondered aloud what his people were supposed to do for five years, and warned that boring Captain Thorne was dangerous.

She considered the _Ariel_. It was apparently a warship and not an assault shuttle, even as diminutive as it was. She'd tried to match form to function in its lines and come up short – it was outside her experience. However, it couldn't have too large a crew… "What's the complement of your vessel?" she asked.

"Thirty-eight including me, but they all won't be coming. Some of them are married, for instance."

Higher than she'd thought, but they did have those marines… "Can you get it down to twenty-six?"

He pursed his lips. "Maybe. Why?"

"If I swear you all as my armsmen I think I can get you in under my diplomatic immunity." she said. "That'll hold you as far as Grayson."

Naismith's chin jerked up. He had a '_you did not just say that_' look on his face as he stared at her. "You have diplomatic immunity from your _own government_? How does that work?"

"It's a little complex," she said. "My armsmen certainly do, though."

"A permanent liege relationship isn't the proper model for a mercenary contract, really…" Naismith said. His mind was racing under there, and she wished she could read his thoughts as well as his emotions.

"If you want to swear with reservations, that's acceptable under Grayson law," Honor said slowly. LaFollet was looking horrified. "I can have fifty personal armed retainers, and I'm currently not maintaining anywhere near that many. I can find work for you in the Steading if nothing else, and I don't think Benjamin will say no to having another small patrol vessel in the system." She'd agreed to pay Naismith primarily by refitting his ship with impeller drives. Without any mechanism for currency exchange, barter was about the only acceptable option. And it would let Manticoran yard dogs (or more likely, Graysonian ones) get a look at the craft.

"This is all in your constitution, right?" Naismith said. "Let's get that out and look at it. I'm going to need the standard oath terms, too." He frowned. "Understand, that I cannot personally swear to you. I –think- it won't be an issue with the rest of the crew." He bit his lip. "Can you swear armswomen, though?"

"Hmm." She looked at LaFollet.

"Of course not," he said. He returned to watching Sergeant Taura narrowly.

"I'll make it work," she told Naismith firmly. "There's some complications to the role involving the Grayson Army, but I have enough contacts in their military establishment that I can make sure they don't give you any trouble."

"I should hope so," Klaus Hauptman said. "Don't you run their fleet there?"

"I don't actually run naval operations," Honor protested. Naismith gave her an incredulous stare.

"Captain Harrington, do you mean to tell me you are _secretly a space admiral_?"

"It's not a secret, really." The mercenary shook his head. She felt deep, perplexed amusement from him. He began to pepper LaFollet with sharp questions about the definitions of various terms, rewriting the oaths on the fly.

Four hours later they had a contract, with his personal word on it and hers as well.

***

"We need to purge all unnecessary files instantly," Miles started as soon as he was back on the _Ariel_. "And I mean everything. I want nothing in our entertainment systems that was published after, oh, 2001. Necessary technical documentation and maps can stay, but I'm going to be going through all that with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they're all really necessary. No unapproved personal effects."

"Progress?" Bel Thorne asked dryly.

"Heh. We're going on extended independent operations through the looking glass, Bel. Captain Harrington – or should I say Admiral Harrington – has offered us a most interesting contract."

"Oh, God," the hermaphrodite said. "I don't trust that woman, Miles. She's a little scary."

"She's from the future, you know, I figured it out. Well, a future. Nobody from here's been there before. We'll be the first. Didn't you ever want to be in the Survey as a kid? Exploring strange new worlds?"

Bel rolled its eyes.

"And it'll be the intelligence coup of a lifetime," Miles said.

"If we get back."

"Five years of hazard pay and a percentage of the proceeds will go a long way, Bel."

"I'm not in it just for the _cash_," Bel objected.

Miles patted it cheerfully on the shoulder and soldiered onward, going through rosters in his head. He needed to ruthlessly purge the crew and the commando squad of the talkative, the unreliable, and Private Danio. "The evacuation is on. I need to talk to Andersen and his tech staff again, but Harrington's shuttles will be handling most of it."

"And just what is Captain Quinn going to say about all this?"

"I'll leave her a note. She'll be in tactical command, I think, with Baz and Elena handling Fleet Engineering and administrative…"

"What, _Hi Elli! Kidnapped by space aliens. Back in five years if I'm lucky. Love, Miles._" Bel's alto voice went up an octave in imitation of its Admiral's treble tone, something Miles did not appreciate. He stopped and stared coldly up at the herm.

"The alternative was me being kidnapped by Cetas, I expect." Miles sobered. "Hell, I'll probably be safer on the other side. I don't think anyone there is trying to kill me yet."

"Yet," Bel said coolly.

*

Honor awaited the _Ariel_'s crew in the hallway outside the boat bay. They'd scuttled a number of shuttles to create room, but the final fit was close to perfect. Of course, its main weapons batteries were now in a spectacular position to completely hull the ship if Naismith so wished, but she'd sensed no such treachery from him.

The Admiral finally emerged with his chosen subset of crew. The rest would remain to guard the ship until they left with the refugees. A small embassy from the treecats to the Betans had joined the ship as well for the airlift, but Honor had no idea what to do with them. It was simply out of her experience for treecats to behave like they did around Naismith and Samantha.

It wasn't an RMN ship they were on, so they didn't stand on ceremony. She got the sense Naismith would have laughed at it, anyway. She was in a Grayson-type gown MacGuiness had scavenged from somewhere aboard, the Harrington Sword at her hip, the Star of Grayson and her steadholder's key adorning her chest.

Naismith paused a second as he saw her and she felt his more-than-aesthetic appreciation. She tried not to blush – the get-up felt very unnatural on her. "Milady," he said, approaching. "May I present my Dendarii officers and other ranks?"

She'd met Captain Thorne, who now seemed dryly resigned to all this, but she hadn't met the man Naismith introduced as Lieutenant Volynkin. A flurry of introductions followed, of troopers and techs in many sizes, shapes, and colors, the pilot officers, the combat medic, the ship's surgeon. She noticed that the Dendarii rank structure seemed to be fairly flat. Lastly, he introduced Sergeant Taura once again. Honor hadn't realized Taura commanded Naismith's commandos as well as being his bodyguard.

The Dendarii felt like soldiers, even if their appearance was a little unmilitary by Manticoran standards. They were a sharp, cohesive whole, especially the commandos. Quite a few of them were skeptical about her, she realized uncomfortably, but they would all defer to Naismith.

"Please come with me, Admiral," she said. "We'll do the swearing in in one of the observation lounges."

He nodded. Nimitz, who'd wreck this gown if allowed to climb it, walked forward to greet Samantha. The two had an air of quiet conspiracy that made Honor worried.

LaFollet and MacGuiness had conspired to deck out the room in appropriately Graysonian style. Honor unsheathed her sword and took her designated seat, casting her eyes over the small group of mercenaries. She nodded at Captain Thorne, who was giving Admiral Naismith a look. As the captain reluctantly knelt, Honor reversed the blade, holding the hilt out for Thorne to place both hands on.

"Bel Thorne," she said. "Are you prepared, in the presence of witnesses, to swear fealty to myself under the eyes of God and His Holy Church?"

Naismith's eyes were bright. His private thoughts were clearly amusing him, but the Admiral kept a poker face. In that soft, androgynous voice, Thorne stumbled through the appropriate reply, outlining the reservations Naismith had stipulated, and swore to bear true service to her, and to obey her lawful orders. She took the rest of their oaths, then, letting the rest refer to Thorne's oath instead of going through the reservations one by one. Taura was the last to take oath, but Naismith, as agreed, did not swear.

*

"Oh, she does clean up well, doesn't she. And tall." Bel's whisper after Harrington left was wicked. "I'm starting to understand why you're so enthused by this venture…"

"That's your liege-lady you're ogling," Miles whispered just as cheerfully. Bel rolled its eyes.

What he'd really been worried about was Lieutenant Volynkin causing a scene. Volynkin was not only a fleet intelligence officer but Illyan's agent on the Ariel. He'd given him the option to stay or go as he pleased, and the Barrayaran had decided to stay. He'd even given oath, slightly ironically. Miles supposed that under Barrayaran law Harrington was a girl and didn't count. He _still_ wasn't sure whether Volynkin was acting as his support or collecting evidence to pin him to the wall when he got home, because the bastard wouldn't break cover.

Miles slipped away, trailing Harrington at a distance. She hadn't gone far. The corridors were crowded with evacuees and other people now, but clearly two delegations had collided that should not have.

Shannon Foraker was sitting, rubbing a sore knee where she'd tripped or fallen. A guy Miles pegged as her commanding officer was keeping a very straight face, but appeared subtly worried. A passel of treecats were strewn about the hall, looking interested. And Citizen Commissioner Jourdain was on the floor with a very large male treecat perched on his chest and a dreamy, unseeing expression on his face as he stared into the 'cat's eyes. "Oh, God," he breathed, with completely unrevolutionary fervor.

Harrington's lips were a white line. Miles sensibly fled the scene. He caught up with Andersen, before he was loaded onto his assigned lifeboat. A secret glee passed between them – she'd clearly been too busy to think about the tech transfer opportunities. He said goodbye to the dozen or so Dendarii he was leaving behind, handing off the letter he'd written to Quinn, with the obscure note enclosed that she'd know to pass on to Illyan. As he waited, the treecat embassy (minus one) made it to the lifeboats. They seemed to like the Betans quite well. Miles hoped that this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

After the launch, he made his way back to the _Ariel_, grinning madly. Bel had already returned to Nav and Com, and shook its head as it watched him.

"You know, in the holos this never turns out well," the herm said. "When we get there they're all going to have goatees and evil smirks and we're going to escape by the skin of our teeth, if that."

"Oh, come on. Where's your sense of adventure?" He got word from Harrington that the _Artemis_ was nearly ready for wormhole transit, and to stand by. The jump headset went down over his pilot officer's head, and Miles went to lounge in one of the seats. Samantha crawled up behind him, sitting on the chair back and watching everything.

"Died of heart failure somewhere along the way, I think." But Bel smiled. It was still game.

The universe swayed around them.


	5. Chapter 5

The system was the same as the one he'd met Samantha in, but girded and fanged with metal. The night lights on Manticore were visible to the _Ariel's_ sensors even this far out, and an endless chorus of lightspeed transmissions echoed through space.

In Sphinx orbit, the _Ariel_ was a mere mote in a circling swarm of vessels and orbital platforms. In the spaceport far beneath, Miles was a child-sized man nervously trailing his tall, powerful, hostess. Harrington's armsmen plowed a trail through the crowd for her. His chin rose as he caught some stares, but most of the looks went to his companion. He heard a few hissed words: "the Salamander!", but didn't see who'd spoken.

He was wearing the least-outrageous civilian clothes in his closet, trying to blend into the walls. He'd decided not to bring Taura downside as his bodyguard, instead asking Harrington to add Trooper Phillipi to her detail. The Dendarii woman looked sharp in Harrington green, though she carried a stunner instead of the lethal pulsers her brother armsmen sported.

Honor spotted a man and a young girl in the distance, and smiled. Miles glanced back at the pair of reporters that were trailing them and delegated Phillipi to run interference. The crowd thinned as they made their way to a waiting pair of aircars.

"I was so excited when I heard you were going on maternity leave, Honor," the girl said. "But then they told me it was your _treecat_."

"Yes, sorry Mother." Harrington sounded both long-suffering and faintly amused.

That was her _mom_? Miles's eyebrows slowly rose. He'd met taller eight-year-olds, though admittedly none so busty. She was quite pretty if one was into Asian schoolgirls, which Miles wasn't.

"Hmph. So, Nimitz, is there something you haven't been telling us all these years?" The woman crossed her arms and stared up at him. He bleeked back in amusement from his perch on Harrrington's shoulder.

Harrington laughed, a pure giggle that seemed out of place. Her father, who was more the height Miles had been expecting, enfolded her in a hug. "It's been a hard few weeks, baby," he said. "You have no idea how good it is to see you."

"I was hoping I could use the homestead for a while, at least until the kittens are born," Harrington said. "Is that quite all right? It won't just be me, it'll be the armsmen, and MacGuiness and Mr. Naismith too."

"Oh, of course," her father said. "That's what we have the apartment in the city for, after all."

"It'll be nice to hear the pattering of little feet there again," Honor's mother added meaningfully. Harrington gave a wintry smile. The armsmen were loading the luggage.

"Is this Nimitz's young lady, then?" Harrington's father asked, smiling at the only pregnant treecat in the terminus. He eyed Miles and then held a hand out. "I don't think we've met. Dr. Alfred Harrington."

"Miles Naismith," he replied, returning the handshake firmly.

"This is my wife Allison, who's also a physician," Dr. Harrington continued.

"Charmed," Miles replied, bowing over her minuscule hand.

"You're _not_ from Grayson," the shorter Dr. Harrington said, tilting her head curiously up at him. Her immaculately groomed eyebrows crinkled. "Oh-oh. What have we here?"

"He's with Samantha," Harrington said quellingly.

"I was kidnapped," Miles said with a wry twist of his lip.

The tiny woman beamed at Honor. "I'm glad your treecats realize how badly you need to get laid." She looked at Miles critically. "Though he's a little scrawny…"

"_Mothe__r!_"

Miles looked down at the top of Honor's mother's head, up at her father, and shook his head as he realized he wasn't the only person responding to early childhood conditioning…

*

His gray eyes looked up from across the room, meeting hers. There were fifteen books set aside by his elbow. He closed the one he was reading and handed it up to Samantha to reshelve, watching her spider carefully up the bookshelves with a thoughtful look on his face.

"She knows where the books are supposed to go on the shelves," Naismith said in a cheerful tone as she approached. "Which is a _neat trick_ for someone who can't read." Samantha made an amused noise.

"I realize I'm being a poor hostess," Honor said. "Do you or Samantha need anything?"

"We're just fine," he said. "I'd just as soon stay out of the way of all your earnest young men. I don't think they really approve of me." Samantha hopped to the floor, and walked over, tail swishing. She was just beginning to show.

"Andrew's of the opinion that I need a chaperone around you," Honor said.

Naismith grinned. "Do you?" He _liked_ her. A lot. That much came across very clearly. For the tiniest of instants he reminded her very painfully of Paul. "For your protection, or mine, Captain?"

"Um..." she said. Her cheeks were warming.

He laughed quietly, his eyes bright and very alive. "Is he more afraid that I'm going to stab you or kiss you?"

"It is a bit ridiculous, isn't it," she admitted. Naismith was quite possibly the least physically threatening man she'd ever met.

He bounced to his feet, crossing the floor with barely a wince at the gravity. He stopped about a foot in front of her. "To be honest," he said, his neck craning up, "it'd take a bit of work to get that far up."

Her eyebrows rose slowly.

"That wasn't a joke about you being tall," he said hastily at her reaction, stepping out of her personal space. "That was a joke about me being short."

"Ah," she said.

"Am I being horribly inappropriate here?" he asked plaintively. "If we're going to be living with each other for the next few years, eventually we do need to figure out if we're dating or not."

Honor blinked. The idea seemed ridiculous on the face of it.

On the other hand, they'd been eating at least four meals a week together for the past few weeks, and she'd brought him home to meet her parents.

Hmm.

He was squinting up at her, trying to project self-confidence, but she could tell that he was nervous as anything at her continued, confused silence.

"I thought you were sleeping with your bodyguard," she said after a moment. Now he was the one who was turning pink. He bit his lip.

"Not currently," he said carefully. "Not since she was sworn into the fleet. She's under my authority and protection. But we're not, um, a couple, Milady."

"I see." Naismith was completely off-balance, a rare thing in Honor's experience of him. She smiled and he lit up, his face alert and attentive. "You can call me Honor, Admiral."

He grinned fiercely. "You can call me Miles."

*

It was a scandalous affair, mostly because Naismith was intrinsically scandalous. Spurning Sphinx, he insisted on Manticore, which was easier on his bones. The reaction of the press when they realized the Salamander was sharing an apartment with someone as she worked for BuWeaps was only to be expected.

Miles reveled in the attention, really.

*

"You mean _you_ set those media rats on me?" she asked, her face a still mask.

"Good God, woman, you're an admiral. You need to learn to take care of yourself."

He gave her that little grin. She glared at him.

"Your subordinates are covering for you. Your superiors are covering for you. You need to tell them all to go fuck themselves and learn how to deal with people. And yeah, that includes the media."

"Bleek!" Vorthalia said in emphasis.

She wanted to be mad at him, but it was hard when he had a treekitten on his head.

*

One could speak of the peculiar meeting between Taura and the Countess of the Tor…

…or Bel's desperate defense of its hamster from ravening treekittens…

…or that time Manticore's Office of Naval Intelligence and the Forestry Commission realized putting Denis Jourdain in a Sphinx prison camp was a bad idea because it let his treecat spread communist agit-prop…

*

The _Ariel_'s antimatter plant had the power output of a small destroyer, enough to maintain a dispatch boat's military impeller drives. Alpha nodes and a so-called 'hyper generator' were completely out of the question given the ship's minuscule size, but Bel was quite pleased with Hauptman's refit. They had to mostly gut the enormous reaction thrusters to put in the after ring, and half the shuttle bay to put in the forward ring, and even so there was a tense moment when they checked the stresses on the Necklin rods. Their existing compensators, thankfully, would be sufficient even at the spectacular accelerations they were assured the new drive could produce.

It had taken the _Ariel_'s small engineering crew a week or two to reconnect the hull network of the Sword-Swallower after the new drives were put in. Miles went out in a suit once or twice himself to help out when they were short-handed. They'd have to take on two extra techs for the impellers, but that was unavoidable until some of the _Ariel_ crew could be cross trained. All his people understood about necessary security precautions.

The tricky bit was purging the system of all the little intelligence gizmos the Manticorans tried to slip in. Samantha had previously been an _engineer's_ treecat, though. That helped. So did finding out through subtle trial and error that Manticoran drug conditioning was not particularly effective against either fast-penta or the standard short-term memory wipe. Still, Miles breathed a sigh of relief that their computer systems were completely incompatible.

*

Eventually BuPers realized that, approved or not, it made no sense to put Captain Harrington on maternity leave for someone else's treecat. Grayson beckoned, and the steading, and stranger duties.

Miles wondered if it was a good thing if one's sometime-lover named her yacht after her dead boyfriend. Maybe he was still thinking on the wrong scale, but it shocked him that she could buy a yacht large enough to carry the _Ariel_ out of petty cash. They were displacing the regular pinnace it would have carried, but _still_.

He decided hyper creeped him out. Some of the more technically-oriented crew were boning up on theory, but it was fundamentally alien to the way Miles thought. His mind could easily envision what accelerations in the hundreds of gravities would do to space combat, but he didn't understand the strategic implications of their hyper drive as well as he felt he should.

*

If the attention on Manticore had been amusing, the attention on Grayson was scary. Being 'the Salamander's mysterious boytoy' had been fun for Miles, but now he was 'that man who's dishonoring the Steadholder'. He was never treated with anything less than exquisite courtesy, but every man he met made it perfectly clear in his body language that if he made Steadholder Harrington the _slightest_ bit unhappy he'd end up in more pieces than Mad Emperor Yuri.

He'd hoped to observe whatever Honor was accomplishing here, but ended up baffled and worried. Whatever was going on here, it couldn't be culturally healthy. It wasn't a woman they worshiped, but a goddess of war and vengeance.

That wasn't even _touching_ the religious side. Or the polygamy. In defense, he found himself drawing on a short lifetime's worth of training as Lord Vorkosigan, summoning that stillness and flatness, letting verbal and non-verbal barbs bounce off. Difference here wasn't…appreciated, and the planet had strong ideas about the proper roles of men and women. Bel was willing to be more outrageous than he was, but Bel was a Betan by birth, with a very firm idea of its rights, including the right to mercilessly tease prudish monosexual outlanders.

It didn't help that Miles was sharing Honor's house with her disapproving fleet commander Earl White Haven, who clearly thought Honor was too good for him and wanted her all to himself. White Haven was the one who conspired with Grayson's chief of naval operations to forbid him from going out on patrol with her. While that made a certain amount of sense (Miles was the designated kitten-minder, after all), White Haven was so deeply smug when he delivered the news that Miles felt obligated to resent him.

The _Ariel_ itself was tagging along with her, since Honor's flagship for her cruiser squadron was a Grayson vessel and the commander would never dream of contradicting _Steadholder Harrington_. That left Miles alone, on Grayson, with no backup against a planet's worth of hostility except his wits, his diplomatic skills, and Samantha.

He wasn't nervous. Not until Bel came back, anyway.

*

"What do you mean, you lost her, Bel?" Miles's voice had a hollow hysterical edge he couldn't quite keep down.

"She was visiting on the lead ship. We couldn't take her over, because it was one of the Manticoran ones, and we're not allowed aboard. She went into the system first, got jumped by Havenites, and we were stuck in the flagship boat bay when the convoy fled." Bel's tone had a practiced neutrality, aimed to blunt the edges of its Admiral's notorious moodswings. It looked polished and professional in its new uniform of Harrington green-on-green.

"This makes things…much more difficult," Miles said. His mind whirled. He'd been counting on Honor to get them back out of this crazy place. Could her subordinates be counted on to honor her contract, years down the line? He didn't know. His head hurt. His heart hurt.

Bel looked down as Samantha made a whining, unhappy noise. Her body language was skulking and anguished. Miles pulled her to his chest for about ten seconds until he was forced by her weight to put her down.

"Goddamnit," he said numbly, when Bel didn't reply.

*

It bothered him that he didn't know if she was dead. If she was dead, Nimitz was dead, and Samantha was a treecat widow. He wasn't sure what one said to a treecat in that situation. Were there proper forms? Did treecats have funerals? Did one burn death offerings, or would that be considered tacky?

Earl White Haven said grimly that the only people who knew what happened to her were the Peeps, and they'd no doubt wish to brag if she was dead or injured. Miles traced the communication times and thought dark cold thoughts to himself.

When the news came, it came in a scything blast, shaking the planet to the bone. Miles watched with the entire world as Harrington stood in front of her captor, that cool façade breaking as her treecat was threatened. Samantha's gaze was just as glued to the broadcast, comprehending its every facet. She looked up at her person as the Citizen Committeewoman Ransom handed the death sentence down, an impossibly deep well of pain in her eyes.

"Camp Charon," Miles muttered under his breath. "In the Cerberus system."

He had the where. Could the whens line up? He gave Bel a significant look as he placed a reassuring palm on Samantha's back.

*

As it turned out, he didn't actually have the where, but it wasn't difficult to discover.

"So here's the historical boundaries of Haven at the time the first rumor of this place's existence showed up. Here's the current boundaries." Bel said.

"Excellent. That cuts the search area by a lot. What do you want to bet they're doing cute stuff with the naming scheme, too? We've got some charts of the People's Republic and the Manticoran maps. If it's not on any of those, it might be on _our_ maps…"

Lieutenant Volynkin watched silently. He had offered no criticism or praise of the plans spooling out of Miles's head. He, Bel, and Taura were still in their Harrington greens, but Miles was in his undress grays for the first time in well over a year. Samantha was perched on Taura's shoulder, her dove-gray armbands showing her rank insignia. A collar would have been too subservient, a vest too reminiscent of the now-mythical organ-grinder monkeys of Old Earth.

The Grayson news had gone into every detail of what was publicly known about Haven's secret prison camp. That gave them some astronomical clues to go by. Aided by the computer, Miles methodically combed through the candidate systems. He hit it about twenty minutes later and put it up on the display. It wasn't on any of the _local_ maps.

Studying it, Miles traced the route of the broadcast back through the Solarian League news bureaus to its origins on Barnett in his head. There, Honor had been put on Cordelia Ransom's ship, for what he estimated was a five-week transit to the system he'd identified as Cerberus. But they'd received the news here a little over a month after Ransom's departure… and it was a sixteen-jump wormhole traverse from Yeltsin's Star to Cerberus. Two and a half weeks…with _Ariel_'s old drives.

With her _new_ ones… they could get there first.

*

Sixty missiles streaked down on them.

"I thought you said they wouldn't be able to hit us before we jumped, Bel." Miles growled.

"We can't go any faster," the hermaphrodite said in a strained tone. "I didn't spot the missile battery on that last moon. You didn't either, sir."

"How confident are you that we can take a hit?"

"If those things are going to smack into us at some ridiculous fraction of c, not at _all_."

"That'd take some work to accomplish, though," Miles said. "Anyway, most of their missiles aren't kinetic. They blow up at thirty thousand kilometers or so."

"What are they shooting from thirty thousand klicks?" Bel asked, frowning.

"Lasers, believe it or not."

"Ah." Bel relaxed slightly.

Miles frowned "Don't laugh. The energy flux could probably fry our Sword-swallower if they all hit at once."

"Not since we hooked the impeller drive into the hull capacitors. It makes a brilliant heat sink." Bel glanced sideways at the impeller plot, and keyed a few manual adjustments into the tactics computer.

"We did? That sounds... extremely ill-advised." To say the least. Miles could think of about eight or nine things that could go spectacularly and explosively wrong with that kind of set-up.

"You signed off on it!"

"I was distracted by kittens!"

Bel's eyebrows quirked up, and it smiled evenly down at its admiral before returning to its duties. They watched as the seconds ticked away. The _Ariel_ had nearly completed its deceleration and velocity match with the far wormhole in this hostile system. They had two more systems to cross before Cerberus, but no second volley could follow them where they were going.

"'course," Miles said thoughtfully, fifteen seconds before detonation, "if we're really unlucky, they might all be nukes."

No countermissiles were launched, no decoys deployed. Seventeen missiles spent themselves on the _Ariel's_ churning wedge. Seven missiles incorrectly identified the diminutive fast cruiser as a false target and ignored her. Two collided into each other accidentally. One suffered a drive failure, and twelve just missed, designed as they were for targets at least ten times her mass.

The rest pivoted, fired, and bounced.

*

"Mr. Naismith." Earl White Haven's tone was cool over the communications link. He was still groundside on Grayson, with some minutes communications lag separating him and Miles. A small destroyer was between _Ariel_ and the plane of the ecliptic, shadowing them in. "Where have you been?"

"Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it." Miles let the corner of his mouth lift as he considered the earl. Two could play the smug bastard game, heh. He hadn't left notice before cutting his impellers and slipping through one of Yeltsin's exit wormholes. His departure two weeks ago had clearly not gone unremarked, and his reappearance well within the system's hyper limit had scared Grayson traffic control something fierce. They'd been longer coming back than going out, since their outgoing route had sent them through the heart of a defended Havenite system and Bel wasn't sure it'd be able to pull that off a _second_ time.

"I'm on Steading business, and I need urgent medical care for several of my passengers," Miles continued as the time lag wore on. "Please expedite our passage."

He looked back as the door to Nav and Com opened and Taura escorted Honor in. She was hideously gaunt even after nearly a week's worth of good food, and her facial implant was frozen. One arm was gone, and she was wavering a little as she walked. There had been confusion when Miles's rescue attempt had collided with Honor's escape attempt, but Samantha had sorted everything out and gotten things moving. The Ariel's hull was packed with representative individuals from forty-three existing and defunct navies, every one of the small handful of Graysons that had been consigned to Hell, Honor's officers and staff, a Manticoran admiral, and another handful of the highest profile political prisoners they'd been able to turn up.

The very highest profile prisoner, of course, had been Amos Parnell, former chief of Havenite naval operations. He had declined for sound historical reasons to be repatriated to Yeltsin's Star, but held the Cerberus system in concert with Alistair McKeon in the hope that Honor would send a relief force. Citizen Committeewoman Ransom was now his… well, hostage was not a nice word.

Miles's grin widened. Havenite drug conditioning was no more effective against fast penta than the Manticoran variety. He nodded at Honor, who despite her injuries looked around the control center with sharp curiosity. He and Bel had never allowed her in here before.

The earl's reply reached them. "Explain yourself, Mr. Naismith."

"We're getting targeting radar hits from the destroyer, sir," Bel said.

"Admiral White Haven's on the line, Milady," Miles murmured.

"Thank you, Miles," she replied, stepping forward. Time lag. Time lag. White Haven's eyes widened as if somebody had hit him. _Score!_ Miles leaned back in his chair, _effusing_ smug as the admiral struggled for words.

"Commodore Harrington," White Haven said numbly. But he was a sharp customer and his expression went very neutral as he further considered Miles. "How?" he asked. The timing, from his perspective, was surely impossible.

"Admiral," Miles said with a lazy grin, "this is what I do."

*

Harrington got her rescue fleet, as every red-blooded Grayson male in the system jumped to obey her least whim. Miles could tell her threat to go back personally and see it done right if they didn't was deadly serious. Her steel will was something he respected in her, even if it sometimes pushed her to idiotic stands on principle.

She needed to go back to the Star Kingdom to get fixed up properly. The Graysons were scaring Miles again, so he was glad to accompany her. The entire Yeltsin's Star system was currently in a state of suppressed berserker rage at the way Honor had been treated, and the testosterone poisoning looked to get worse there before it got better.

The propaganda filmlet Miles and Bel had done on Charon was soon released into the wild – forty-three prisoners, forty-three navies, forty-three stories. Most of the stories were of lower-level prisoners that had somehow incurred enough of StateSec's (or its predecessor organization InSec's) fury to be sent to Hell, crewmen and petty officers and lieutenants. Some of the stories were decades old, some bleedingly fresh. Harrington spoke for the Manticorans (though she was given no more time than the others), while Parnell spoke for the Havenites. It was, Miles thought smugly, brilliant. They'd shown the raw cut to Ransom before they'd left and her reaction proved them right.

*

On Manticore, medical complications arose, though not the expected ones.

"What do you mean you're pregnant?" Miles asked blankly. He'd long since realized that Manticoran genetic and biotechnology techniques had all the subtlety and elegance of buzzsaws, but surely they weren't so behind that they'd screw up a contraceptive implant?

Half her face was blushing. He tried not to look baffled. "I mean, Honor, if you wanted kids you could have…" Could have what? His brain shut his mouth down before he _really_ stepped in it.

"My implant's still there," Honor said, "but it looks like the Havenites disabled it with as the rest of my cybernetics." Her words were still softly slurred, since the repairs to the artificial side of her face had yet to be completed. "I didn't know. I didn't imagine they would. It was supposed to be still good for another year or two."

"Ah," he said neutrally. He hadn't quite dared to ask what had happened to her in captivity. This was clearly not the time to do so, but the timing for any pregnancy was about right either way. He reached out, gently running his fingers over her slim belly. "How long?"

"A month and a half, maybe." Unless she was secretly having an affair with Earl White Haven, it looked like the responsibility was all his.

Illyan was going to kill him.

Oh, God. _Grayson_ was going to kill him.

*

That night, Andrew LaFollet took him for a walk around the inner perimeter of Honor's family home on Sphinx. His pulser holster bounced at his hip. When they were at the furthest part of their little perambulation, the armsman stopped, turned, and gave him a very serious look.

"You are going to do the right thing by the Steadholder, aren't you."

Miles smiled weakly. It wasn't a question.

*

Honor watched as Miles stepped into the house, turning the gravplates back down to a level that he could tolerate. He seemed thoughtful. Looking up, he caught her look at him, and sent a wave of frustrated affection her way.

"I don't feel it's fair that you're an empath sometimes," he sighed. "Makes things more complicated." He threw himself on an armchair designed for her mother, his brow furrowed in thought.

"So," he started. "We're having a baby. Um. There are some things I should probably mention, and if I'd known this was going to happen I would have mentioned them earlier."

He looked at her, looked away. She felt his mixed emotions – he was privately thrilled, but also deeply terrified at the same time.

"The first thing I should mention is that I have a strong family history of psychoticism. I've got, um, a mild version, as you may have noticed, but my grandfather stabbed babies for fun. If I was back at home, I wouldn't be worried about this, but I don't trust your mother with gene work. She tries to solve everything with nanites and that's…" he shuddered elaborately.

Her eyebrows rose. He bulled onwards. "The rest of my… issues aren't genetic. I wouldn't worry about them. My natural height is around six feet or so, so our children won't be dw-"

_Children_? Honor thought.

Miles had stopped mid-sentence. A very peculiar expression came over his face as he looked down at the chair he was in. He muttered something fervent under his breath in another language that she didn't catch. After a soft bleek, Samantha hopped onto the chair and spooled up into a tight reassuring ball on his lap

He took a deep breath and seemed to bite his tongue in frozen indecision. Silence. She tilted her head at him.

"I think we should formalize our relationship," he blurted out. "There's massive dynastic issues involved, but it's the right thing to do."

Her eyes widened. "We don't have to get married," she said.

"The child has to be legitimate to be your heir, right? Both ways."

She frowned. "I'm sure they'd make an exception if they had to. Half the Steadholders in the Keys have their own, er, bastards, anyway."

His mouth tightened at the word 'bastard'. "Grayson might not give _you_ any trouble," he said carefully. "But, um…"

She hadn't considered that aspect of it. Was that why LaFollet…? Did she even have to ask?

"I'll talk to Andrew," she said. "If my armsmen are bothering you…"

His emotions rippled. "This isn't about Andrew," he growled. Samantha sent a flick of exasperation into Honor's mind in punctuation.

"It shouldn't be about dynastic issues and the steading either," she said.

"I didn't mean _your_ dynastic issues." He looked like a headache was coming over him. "Let's start over. Will you marry me?"

He was serious, too, the amused façade dropping. Nimitz rumbled on her shoulder, signaling silently to Samantha.

"If we're going to raise children," there he went again with the plural, "given the hazards of your line of work and mine, we need all the legal safeguards we can get."

She nodded. "But… you need to go back to where you came from, right?"

He looked at her sharply, and nodded. "It's three years before we have to think about that though, and even so, we have a long time after that. A couple hundred years if the actuaries don't catch up with us. You're fighting a war, you'll be away either way." His gaze became more anxious as her brow furrowed.

"I… yes." His eyes lit up. "My superiors won't be happy, though." Hemphill wanted to dissect Miles's ship, and possibly his brain as well. White Haven was less overtly disapproving these days, but thought Miles was too young for her. Too foreign. Too untrustworthy.

*

"Andrew," Honor said, dismissing her other armsman with a wave of her fingers.

"Milady?" he asked.

"What do you think of Naismith?"

"As a man, milady?" LaFollet's soft, slow voice was a little more hesitant than usual.

"As Steadholder Consort Harrington."

A long, thoughtful silence. "He'll do. I'd have never thought so before, but… he'll do."

"Explain?" she asked.

"We're here to protect you," Andrew said. "And we couldn't, when we were captured. We should have killed all of them before letting them lay a finger on you." His eyes had the shadow of remembered anguish. "I know it would have done nothing, but we should have, because that's who we are, and if we can't protect you…" He shook his head. Not a polished speaker, he was searching for words. "When you needed a protector, he was there. God surely helped him, but he put himself between you and death and there's no greater honor than that. And that's what a husband is, milady. What a true one is, anyway."

"That's a very Grayson answer." She sighed. "Do you think I need a protector?" She'd been in shock for the escape, not responding very well to her surroundings. She remembered her surprise at sensing Samantha through Nimitz, but there were gaps in most of the rest, due to blood loss or unconsciousness. She still wasn't sure how he'd seized the camp _before she'd gotten there_, and was even less clear on what had really happened to Cordelia Ransom's battlecruiser. She did know, though, that he'd handled the situation with a practiced, terrifying professionalism all out of proportion to his age.

Before she'd hit the ground he'd reduced the base completely, eliminating all resistance. He'd somehow clawed codes out of the StateSec personnel. No, not somehow. She'd been there when his truth drugs coaxed a total confession of what seemed like every cruelty and crime in her long history from Cordelia Ransom. She had respected Naismith as a man, but it was there that she had come to realize that she had completely underestimated him as a commander.

"Maybe not, milady. But he's someone brave enough to try," LaFollet said.


	6. Chapter 6

"I am not converting to Space Mormonism," Miles said firmly, in bed.

"I wasn't asking you to." From what Honor had heard, he'd cheerfully played hookey from Church services his entire time on Grayson. "It was just an option. I don't know anything about your wedding customs, after all."

"They don't really have a separate concept of marriage on Beta Colony," Miles said. "It's just new earrings. The state doesn't concern itself except with child permits."

She glanced at the simple twist of metal in an infinity loop hanging from one ear. "Is that a new earring?"

"It is indeed," he purred, burrowing into her bosom. "Bel's already laughed at me this morning."

"Do I get one?"

"If you want…" He chuckled as she tilted her head to look down at him.

"Miles, do you even _have_ a religion?"

His small, sweat-slicked body slithered up her right side, avoiding her missing arm, and he craned his head around so that she could see him fully out of her good eye.

"I'm sort of Betan Presbyterian by default."

"Baptized?"

"Yep."

"So maybe my church…"

He made a face. "Bel's a ship captain. It can marry us."

"That's not actually legal on Manticore."

"No? Damn shame… Can't we just elope? Find an Elvis impersonator or something?"

*

"I have," Allison Harrington intoned, "the initial gene scans." Miles was across the waiting room before she finished the sentence.

"I was wondering what was taking so long," he grinned.

Honor was looking a little harried. "It seems we're having twins, Miles."

"Well, that's a start," Miles said, effortlessly sleight-of-handing the scans from his mother-in-law. His grin was wider than spacelanes. Honor's smile in return was more awkward. She could almost smile properly now that they'd begun to reconnect those nerves.

"How many were you planning?" Honor asked. "Two's intimidating enough for me."

"I always wanted six," Miles said wistfully. "I understand that might not be practical… I didn't really have siblings, you know. Not in the classic sense." He tilted his head as Samantha flicked her ears up at him, and grinned. "Samantha thinks we should definitely stop before four."

"Well, she'd know," Honor said with dignity. "In any case, I don't want to know anything before they're born, so don't tell me."

Miles's eyes went back to the gene scans, hunting for an overview. "Right, right," he said absently. Female, projected adult height range 177 to 182 cm… he glanced over the projected adult appearance. Huh. She definitely had a bit more of Honor's dad's build than was really ideal, but he'd been warned about the heavy-grav mods. Otherwise, she mostly looked like his dad. Straighter, darker hair, much more buxom, Eurasian around the eyes, but with a strongly Vorish jawline. It wasn't exactly a bad look… she'd be good at terrorizing liegemen into line, he bet.

Allison Harrington was leaning around his shoulder to read. Honor watched them with resignation. "Are you two done yet?"

"Looks like you," Allison whispered in his ear, a smirk in her voice.

Huh, she sort of did, yeah. He reserved a small smile. Honor glared at them from across the room, pointedly not listening.

Allison reached to turn the page. "That one looks like Alfred's sister though," she murmured. Miles personally thought she looked kind of like a dark-haired, prettier version of his own mother. She certainly was less Chinese-looking than her sister, hair aside. Fraternal twins, then, both girls. He breathed a very Barrayaran sigh of silent relief.

"Definitely the cuter one, too," his mother-in-law grinned.

Miles privately disagreed, but then he liked the Barrayaran type. He idly glanced up over the other stats of Daughter #2 and stopped dead.

Honor gave him a sharp look from across the room, instantly picking up his distress. He unsuccessfully tried to quell his outraged indignation. It was nobody's fault really, and it was stupid of him to be so upset, but all his rationalizations didn't change the fact that one of their daughters would be lucky to clear five-two.

Miles knew exactly whose genes were to blame here, too. He gave Allison Harrington a withering look that the shorter woman either didn't notice or pretended not to. Honor was giving him increasingly worried glances, as his face went still.

"This is fixable at this stage, isn't it?" he finally brought himself to ask.

"What is?" Honor asked, drawn in despite herself. She was surely picking up on his emotions, which was embarrassing.

He scowled. "The height."

Allison Harrington glared up at him. "I follow ethical guidelines in my genetic work," she said with great dignity.

"Extra growth hormones would probably do the trick."

Allison smirked. "She's taller than _you_, I don't see what the issue is…"

"Mother," Honor sighed, very pained. "I really didn't want to know."

"Sorry, darling." Allison turned back to Miles. "Let me guess, you married a _tall_ girl, so you could have _tall_ kids. What a proper little Napoleon!"

He growled at her, heat rising in his cheeks.

Her eyes widened. "You did! Oh, Honor, watch out, you're his fetish!"

"_Mother_!"

Allison Harrington chuckled wickedly. "But seriously, dear, I'm still willing to be your surrogate. It's not right to have children in tubes like that."

Miles normally tolerated or ignored Honor's mother. Now, for the first time, he found himself completely speechless.

"You could even have them born on Grayson, too, since I'm going back there to mind the clinic." Allison added. "I think I've nearly found out what's causing their miscarriages, but I need to take more samples."

"Oh," he said thinly. "You're not joking."

Honor looked down and sideways at him. It was her 'please don't make a scene' look. He ignored it, suddenly terrified for his incipient children as a new threat to them loomed from a wholly unanticipated direction.

"You want to do a second placental transfer...of Honor's twins... to you." Miles tried to grasp the mindset of somebody irresponsible enough to naturally gestate twins _on purpose_ when there were uterine replicators available and gaped. Even if Allison Harrington wasn't the size of an _eight year old girl_, it would be beyond belief.

"I miss being pregnant," Allison said cheerfully.

"Gler," Miles said, flabbergasted. "You'd have to gain half again your body weight to feed them properly! At least!" He recognized the glint in her eyes of dangerous fanaticism now. "There'll be no room for your internal organs if they grow full-size!" With a mother Honor's size twins would be crowded and underfed by a pound or two, and the risk of complications would be vastly increased. Allison was six inches shorter than _him_.

"I managed with Honor. Babies tend to end up the right size for the mother."

"They'll only be the right size for you if you _starve them down to size_!" Miles snarled. "They've got Honor's modifications! They need even more nutrients than normal babies do!" Honor was still softly skeletal from the starvation rations the Havenites had fed her.

"I can eat for three," she said. Miles drew in a breath. She was heading back to Honor's adopted homeworld of Grayson, where the heavy metals contamination had once killed most unadapted children before birth and half the survivors too. _Heavy-gravity _Grayson. She'd be there for months, and prolong prolonged pregnancy by quite a bit.

"You stay away from my children," he said with passionate intensity. "You stay the hell away from them."

His wife's hand came down and grasped him by the shoulder, and he forced himself to calm down.

*

Honor's medical treatment continued apace, and she was appointed to head the staff of one of the tactical courses at the military academy while repair continued on her facial implants and her replacement arm was designed. The two-year posting came with staff housing. Miles politely requested the opportunity to take some classes with the cadets, and the request was granted. He knew the watching and learning was going on on both sides, since if ONI maybe hadn't taken him seriously before they certainly did now.

He'd spent a comfortable evening with his wife (yes, his wife, all his, nobody else's) bitching about tactical simulations that ignored supply considerations. And then she'd gotten a call from her mother.

"I was afraid of this," she said numbly, when the news came in.

"What?" he asked. She looked like death warmed over, and it wasn't just the still-not-quite-fixed facial implant.

"One of the children has my mutation. She won't regen."

"Is it the short one?" he asked. She gave him a cool look.

"Miles, can you be serious for once?"

"Well, I mean, I'm sure my people can fix that at home," he said. "You too, most likely."

"If my mother can't..."

"Your mother's an amateur." His voice cut across hers. "Really, she is. She's deliberately limiting her methods because of her crazy planetary taboos. I personally know at least ten better geneticists, and that's not even counting the ones actively trying to kill me."

"They can't be that good if they haven't discovered prolong."

"The Betans decided long ago that a lifespan of a hundred and twenty years would yield optimum social cohesion, but Cetagandans live longer, at least the upper classes. So do Quaddies, heh. The Jacksonians kludge it through clone murder. Just look at your House of Lords, Honor, and tell me prolong hasn't seriously broken it."

Her lip quirked. "You might have a point."

He sighed. "Yeah. So no, I'm not worried about your mutations. There's other stuff I'm worried about, but not that."

"Other stuff?"

"I'm personally shocked that your armsmen aren't guarding the uterine replicators at the hospital, for instance." He glanced at Andrew LaFollet, present but inconspicuous. "That's almost criminally slack."

Honor raised her eyebrows. "It's a hospital, Miles, do you really think?"

He grinned, not very humorously. "Back when me and my brothers were all the same person, I was taken as a hostage. Somewhere around, oh, five or six months gestation. They were trying for leverage on my father, didn't get it."

"I assume this story has a happy ending."

"Yeah, my mother was extremely upset. She had to stage a commando raid to get me back. Her, one of her armsmen, and her maid. Ambushed the enemy commander, beheaded him, burned down the palace, and took his head back to base on the monorail. That was the end of _that_ civil war."

"…maybe we could transfer them to a military hospital," Honor said. LaFollet was looking very concerned all of a sudden.

"That might be wise," he said. "History hasn't repeated itself, so far. But the reason I'm like this" an abrupt, slightly self-conscious gesture indicated his deformities "dates back to well before I was born, when the bones were melted."

She nodded. "You haven't talked much about your family."

"Mmm," he said. "My family situation is a little complicated. If we're going to have a son, though, you need to know." His mother in law was working on the pre-conception screening for the next child already, though there was no guarantee this one would be a boy either. Once Honor's medical recuperation and her stint as ATC commandant was done, it might be decades before she'd be free of her Navy obligations. This was the right time to have children, and it might be the only time.

"I'm still looking for names for daughters," she said. "Maybe we could name one after your mother?"

He fought back a grin. "Cordelia Harrington?"

She stared at him a moment, then burst into giggles. "Is your mother's name really-?"

He nodded.

"We'll have to cross that one off then." She shook her head. "A son would be Raoul, of course. Raoul Alfred."

"Aral Alfred," he corrected.

Her almond eyes narrowed. "Raoul Alfred."

Their staring contest lasted nearly a minute. Miles broke first, blinking and giving her an ingratiating smile. "We can compromise, maybe. Araoul Alfred. With a silent 'ou'."

"_Miles_!"

"You can name one of the _girls_ Raoul!"

She shook her head at him, not even dignifying that with a reply.

"Your heir's a daughter," Miles said. "My father's heir will be a son. And he's a steadholder too."

Now her eyes widened. So did LaFollet's.

*

She knew only what he'd told her about himself, and that was very little. Aside from Captain Thorne, who wasn't telling, it seemed that his subordinates – her armsmen and women - generally didn't know either. She'd gathered from Thorne that he was a clone of some sort – which surprised her. Naismith was so… unique… it was hard to imagine two of him. "Are you heir to a steading?" she asked.

"Something like that," he said. "Inheritance is by my father's choice, among his sons or other relations."

"How many brothers do you have?" she asked.

He took a deep breath. "Well, there's me. There's my brother the Komarran terrorists made. Ryoval was planning to create another brother, and it is my fervent hope he'll never manage it. The Cetagandans certainly have my sequence, though they'll probably not produce an outright clone. And there's Lord Vorkosigan, of course. Up to three or four." Honor sensed the topic was making him deeply uncomfortable. "But none of them are likely to produce grandchildren, except me."

She didn't grasp even half his explanation. "I'm not sure I understand. Are you all clones? Is this like Mesa, where they make clone lineages to sell into slavery?"

"Yes and no. It's a real mess," he said. "The thing is, because of who I am, and who my father is, at least one of my children needs to return to Barrayar."

"I thought you were Betan?" she said slowly.

"I'm five-eighths Betan. You're no-eighths Grayson, but Grayson still has a claim on you. You have to understand that my father is, by blood, the heir to three worlds. Until the Emperor has a son, the succession is not stable."

"What does that make you, then?"

His lip twitched up. "The prodigal son. Who must eventually come home. The fact that I've been running a private army, of course, complicates things. I have a cautious peace with Emperor Gregor at present, but it won't hold if he learns I've been making cadet branches behind his back. Me and you both will have to come to some arrangement with the Imperium. They will not allow us not to."

This was a side of him she'd not seen. The sudden burst of almost-informativeness seemed highly out of character. She'd have to think about everything he'd said. "I have to say, Miles, I never pegged you as an aristocrat."

He laughed. "Admiral Naismith is not. But Admiral Naismith is what I made of myself when I was a scared kid with two Empires' death squads out for my blood. Who Miles is… who I am, that's a harder question." He touched his chest. "Too many people trying to get out. I'm still learning how to be Steadholder Consort Harrington, you know."

She smiled. "I don't know if I have the hang of Steadholder Harrington yet myself."

*

"Goddamnit," Miles said out loud. He hated the way his mind worked sometimes.

The years had passed. Honor was away shooting missiles at people. He was curled up with Samantha in the Steadholder's chambers on Grayson, some ass had turned off the gravity suppression in the wing while he slept, and he'd just figured out how to take down the Star Kingdom of Manticore.

His 'cat blanket stretched and moved out of the way as he got up to pace. His first impression after seeing the massive orbital industry in the Manticore system was that his universe was doomed. His second impression, after staring at a map of Haven, was even more pessimistic. If they could force their way through the mirror Junction, the Nexus would have no defense against ships a mile long that travelled faster than light. And the people! The galaxy was simply _choked_ with people! Miles had seriously considered the virtues of collaboration with the inevitable. Okay, so maybe that was because the inevitable was gorgeous, tall, and incredibly sexy…

But no challenge was insurmountable. Sometimes all David needed was a sling and big brass stones.

Among the reasons that only a small number of individuals in any Nexus military were ever given the fast-penta allergy treatment was the fact that it created a big, easily accessible artificial biological marker that said 'I am a legitimate military target'. He'd been surprised that every individual in the Royal Manticoran Navy had anti-interrogation drug conditioning, but his subconscious hadn't made the obvious connection until now. It would be an easy shibboleth to learn. This is a soldier. This is a civilian.

A well designed virus, released in a handful of Marine bars on the capital, could scythe through the fleet in months. Well within Dr. Canaba's abilities, and it wouldn't even violate the Eridani Edict.

He scrunched his eyes shut. Would kill millions of people, true. More if it spread into allied navies – or enemy ones. To minimize that possibility (though Grayson's navy would be a loss), the incubation rate would have to be about… yeah.

He supposed it would hit retirees too, including a good chunk of the folk who manned their merchant fleet. Weapons development personnel. Spies.

And Admiral Harrington, of course. Miles opened his eyes and stared into empty space as his backbrain crosschecked the calculations.

"A bloody war or a sickly season," he muttered. "Ye gods and little godlings."

He had no doubt whatsoever that Manticore would seek to take the mirror half of the Terminus, and more. The war had turned, and the Star Kingdom was in desperate straits. It was searching for any advantage, and Miles had betrayed a little too much of his own technological capabilities in the rescue of his lady. If he ever got home, Illyan would _flay_ him.

Once Honor's navy seized the secrets of the Necklin drive, of the Sword-swallower and the plasma mirror, it would be able to blunt Haven's attacks, and its industrial edge against Barrayar and its myriad brother star nations would be matched with technological superiority. Every military establishment secretly lusted for an easy war.

Barrayar might escape, secure through astronomical obscurity, but Beta Colony and its terminus would be in Manticore's sights. He'd studied their history while he was here, the annexation of Basilisk in particular. It would not tolerate a terminus controlled by a weaker foreign power. Of course, as Beta Colony went, so would go the Nexus.

"What the hell am I going to do, Sam?"

He turned down the gravity again and curled up in bed, hugging Samantha very hard.

*

The HMS _Manticore_ floated in the center of the Betan Tangle, a silent sentry and threat. Honor's yacht had come just close enough to it to transmit the confirmation that the Manticoran diplomatic delegation had landed on Beta Colony. That done, they accelerated away from the grav disturbance, preparing to translate into hyperspace.

Five years had gone by, since the _Artemis_ and the _Ariel_ had left this system. A small number of impeller wedge signatures now could be seen on the system plot, and Beta Colony's technical wizards were surely creating new and stranger applications for the technology.

The mission's official business was opening diplomatic relations with Manticore's new neighbor. However, Honor had received permission to visit her children's grandparents. A quick hyperspace hop would take them to the third link in Barrayar's fragile wormhole chain to Komarr. From there they'd switch to the _Ariel_ for the last two jumps to the far-distant world. Miles had timed it so that they'd just beat the tight-beam from Beta home.

Aral was with them, but not the older girls. He took more after his mother than the girls did, though his hair was a medium red-brown that would likely darken with age. Miles had advocated fostering him on Barrayar for years, but Honor had been extremely reluctant. Miles thought it was justified on child welfare grounds alone, because this way he was much less likely to end up with lead poisoning or worse from Grayson's lethal pollution. And it was hardly like she'd see him if he was on Grayson. She'd be lucky to come home once a year the way the war was going these days. Honor had finally conceded, though she reserved the right to veto the arrangement after seeing the planet for herself.

Elli – Commodore Quinn these days – had been waiting for them on Beta, with a certain look on her face and five years worth of frustration to take out on him. And dispatches from home, of course. He'd been surprised to hear that Baz and Elena had retired, but Quinn seemed to have the fleet well in hand. She'd probably inherit it from him, too. There was a limit to how many people he could be at the same side.

Illyan's note had been a formal order to report in with all due speed, etc. His father's letter had begun with _You should know that we declared you dead three and a half years ago,_ which Miles had to admit wasn't a good start. Nothing from Gregor. As Barrayar approached, he was getting more and more nervous.

*

The black and gold of her Manticoran mess dress fit her like a second skin. The two nine-pointed stars of a vice-admiral winked at her throat, the Star of Grayson and nearly a dozen other medals adorned her chest. Pre-empting her steward, Miles fastened the Harrington sword in its jeweled scabbard at her waist, stepped back, and grinned. Widely.

"Do you want to wear the Harrington Key?" he asked.

"Do you think I should? It technically doesn't go with the uniform."

"It might give a mixed message, culturally speaking." he said. "We're already lucky that your livery doesn't overlap with another Count's. But it's part of your regalia. You probably should."

Honor nodded, and he went to fetch it. She had to duck down so he could ease it over her neck. He stepped back to look again, positively glowing with approval. "You look _stunning_," he said.

"Are you sure the uniform is appropriate?" she asked.

"This is Barrayar. Uniforms are always appropriate."

"I notice you're not wearing yours," she said. He was in soberly formal civilian clothes, his only ornament the one earring.

He half-laughed. "Okay, except mine." He went up on tiptoes, and she obligingly bent down to be kissed. "I think we're ready."

They passed Lieutenant Volynkin on the way out. "Kirill!" Miles said alertly.

"Sir?" the lieutenant said.

"Feel free to take a couple days leave while we're here. I know you haven't been home in a while."

"Thank you, sir," Volynkin's mouth curved up in the tiniest of smirks. "And good luck with the Admiral."

Honor didn't think Volynkin meant her. "Yeah…" Miles said. "Thanks."

They were greeted with subdued ceremony on the orbital transfer station. Their escort had been briefed, and didn't raise an eyebrow at the two young, middle-height young men in Harrington green that guarded them, nor even the two treecats that paced after them. The shoulder of Honor's mess dress uniform had a bit too much gold braid to stand up to treecat claws, and Miles had advised against carrying Nimitz on her shoulder anyway. For all his apparent nonchalance, the meeting coming up seemed very important to him.

The world beneath was mostly ocean. Two mid-sized continents were visible, the southern one mostly brown, the northern a patchwork of green and brown. The transfer station seemed small and primitive, and the world showed few signs of industrialization that were visible from space.

"We'll be landing in the Vorbarr Sultana shuttleport," Miles said. "There will be transport for us there."

Like all shuttle landings, the ground came up too fast to get a close look at the city. The protocol officer stood to escort them out, past a squad of soldiers in brilliantly colored red and blue uniforms. All of them were taller than Andrew and his fellow armsman. A long, ground-hugging hovercar idled nearby. Honor and her entourage were ushered into it by the protocol officer, who took the seat next to the driver.

It was a low-lying city, almost similar to Grayson in its horizontality. Few large buildings scraped the sky, and certainly none were as tall as the behemoths Manticore's cities contained. They drove south, accompanied by a police escort, until a massive hexagonal building came into view. More guards were present there, opening a closed gate to admit them to a monumental plaza. They continued south on a path lined with monuments and statues, and walkers respectfully scattered out of their way. Green parkland lined either side of the great avenue, and ahead Honor could see an enormous cemetery to the right. In the distance was a stone bridge.

As they crossed the bridge she could see down the river, more bridges and even river locks. Most of the tall buildings were a distance to the north and south of the gorge. The rim of the gorge sported numerous elegant residences and small boats traveled up and down upon the water. To the south, the path entered a series of formally laid out gardens, leading up in terraces to a large palace.

A red carpet was set out before them, and they were met at the steps by an honor guard and a woman who introduced herself as Lady Alys Vorpatril. Their police escort peeled off, and her armsmen stepped forward to flank her. The guards at the doors of the palace were expressionless, but she could sense their disapproval.

The palace itself was large and ramshackle, a mostly-coherent collection of architectural styles. After a quick protocol briefing from the businesslike Lady Alys, they were led to a room on the second floor. Four guards in black and silver were posted at the door, and her two joined them.

Miles had spent numerous hours in the lead-up to this visit negotiating around her requirement to keep her armsmen with her at all times. He had finally secured permission for two of them to carry stunners into the palace, but they were not permitted in the room when she met the Emperor.

The room was decorated in green silk, with a patterned stone floor. Three older men in military uniform and two woman were waiting there. "Sire, may I present Vice-Admiral Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Countess and Steadholder Harrington, of the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Protectorate of Grayson," the noblewoman said without blinking an eye.

"Your Imperial Majesty," she said, and offered her letters of introduction to Lady Alys, who conveyed to the Emperor. The emotional undercurrents in the room were deep and winding. The roan-haired woman in the long dress radiated fond exasperation and a silent hilarity that was shared with the admiral at her side, though his exasperation was less fond. Miles was a tangled knot of smug pride (he loved showing her off, she'd noticed) and total paranoia. As Honor's husband was introduced as Steadholder Consort Harrington, even the Emperor betrayed a flash of deep amusement through his expressionless mask.

She in turn was introduced to the Prime Minister. Her father-in-law, she realized. He was a solid man, a good ten centimeters shorter than her, with a face softened somewhat by age. His build was very unlike his son's. Miles ate perhaps a third what she did, and wasn't even forty kilos, but Aral Vorkosigan had the remnants of a brawler's physique.

"Steadholder Harrington, Countess Vorkosigan and I would be pleased to offer you and your delegation the hospitality of Vorkosigan House," the Prime Minister said after the formalities were concluded. His wife gave Honor a reassuring smile.

It was only after she left the room that she realized that she and Nimitz hadn't picked up any emotion from the third man at all.

*

Aral Vorkosigan looked at his wife, once the audience was over. "Good god," he said. "She reminds me of my father. Only taller. And more intimidating."

Cordelia started laughing. "Did you see the way Miles was keeping her between him and Simon?"

"Hiding behind her skirts," Aral growled. "That boy…"

Gregor shook his head, pausing on his way out the door to his next appointment. "It's all very Miles, of course. I have to wonder what their children would look like." He ducked down to give Laisa a quick kiss.

"They have three," Simon said. "Two daughters and a son, in that order." The rest of the room glanced sharply at him. "The report just came in from my agent. The son is accompanying them, while the two girls remain on their homeworld. The eldest girl is Steadholder Harrington's heir."

"Really," Gregor said, expressionless.

*

"Royal Manticoran Navy fleet strength as of eight months ago," Miles said, laying another card down. His eyes studied Illyan's desk, not quite daring to look up yet. There was already a pile of datacards there, and his totebag contained many more, five years worth of notes finally extracted from the depths of the Ariel's secure systems.

"Full plans for a practical short-range faster-than-light communications transmitter," he said, placing another card on the desk after Illyan didn't comment. "You have no idea how much of a bitch that was to get. Six volumes of high-level hyperspace theory, and two relevant interrogation transcripts. Unfortunately, I don't have enough to immediately reconstruct a practical alpha node, because they don't scale them down to our ship sizes, but the theory is here."

Continued silence.

"Hyperspace map of the galaxy. This is not currently accurate because the grav waves have shifted in the thousand-odd years between now and then, but it shows what star systems are now our neighbors, and how spread out the Imperium actually is. I've combined wormhole travel times and estimated hyperspace travel times in this second map to show how close everything is by ship. Analysis of the Grayson feudal system, highlighting the possible lessons for Barrayaran reformists. A practical life-extension treatment for individuals under twenty-five, giving them a life expectancy of a few centuries." He started a new stack on the desk. "Full transcript of the interrogation of Cordelia Ransom, former Secretary of Public Information for the People's Republic of Haven, who describes where all the bodies are buried in the current government of Haven. My take on the political situation in the Manticoran House of Lords."

His eyes slid up off the desk. Illyan was still staring at him, his eyes as cold as a basilisk's. Miles took a deep breath.

"My full report, containing a personal analysis of the strategic situation and two suggested courses of action to prevent a Manticoran takeover of the Nexus…"

*

The culture shock was greater because of the similarities. She could tell the hard-faced men that formed Count Vorkosigan's guard were lethal killers, but they all looked old to her, ancient beyond their short span of years. Miles hadn't exactly spoken of it, but she figured that his father had perhaps twenty years to live. She understood a little better why he wanted to reconcile with his family now.

It was the brother who really creeped her out, to be honest. He was a double of Miles, though sturdier and older-looking, a silent observer at her dinners with his family. She knew that she unnerved him just as much as he unnerved her, but that didn't ease her discomfort any. The resemblance was mostly physical, but sometimes she tried to sense her husband and picked him up instead, which rattled her.

Honor was impressed by the effortless teamwork that the Count and his wife displayed in all their actions. Countess Vorkosigan was especially courteous towards Nimitz and Samantha and entranced by her grandchild. Miles's Sergeant Taura had guarded Aral through his infancy, and even though she was no longer a Harrington armsman none of Honor's men had dared replace her yet. When they left, though, she and Honor both would be surrendering Aral to the care of his grandfather's men.

She attended the session of their legislature where Aral was confirmed as his grandfather's heir, seated next to Miles and Countess Vorkosigan in the gallery above. The room below was filled with men, all in some sort of uniform. By far the largest block were in military uniform, which surprised Honor. Barrayar was clearly an extremely militaristic society.

"The vote's not a formality, you understand," Count Vorkosigan had said, "but I'm not concerned. I've declared my intention to retire as Prime Minister once it passes and that should enthuse the opposition." He was down there now, in his red-and-blues.

"There's only the one woman down there. Is she a Countess?" Honor asked.

"No, that's Vorsmythe's voting deputy," Miles's mother said.

"What do the uniforms mean?"

"Most are House liveries," Miles told her. "Serving officers are in uniform."

"I'm not used to seeing such a military legislature," she said. "The Keys aren't like this."

"Probably eighty percent of the Counts have been in the military at some point," Miles said. "Though some for only short periods. I remember Vorlakial washed out his second year of the Academy. If they aren't appointed to the General Staff before they inherit, they're required to resign."

Maybe a fifth of the Council was in uniform. Her eyebrows rose. "Are they all generals, then?"

"Generals, admirals, and commodores. Though some of them are heirs, too."

"Your father's still a serving officer?"

"It's more a political statement," Miles said slowly. "Making it clear exactly who he serves. Father was Gregor's regent for sixteen years. Nobody would dare argue with him about it."

"I can't decide if this is a less primitive or more primitive form of governance than Grayson," she said. "More soldiers, fewer reverends."

Miles chuckled. "Different Tests," he said.

The vote went as expected, and Miles nodded in satisfaction at the end. He'd been surprisingly accepting at his father's choice of his son over him as heir. Countess Vorkosigan explained that, unlike Miles, Aral would be present to inherit if his grandfather died unexpectedly. Without a confirmed heir, the Council could reject Miles, Mark, and young Aral alike in favor of any claimant they preferred.

"Besides," Cordelia Vorkosigan said knowingly, "you aren't letting go of him, are you."

Honor's hand tightened on his small wrist. "No," she said.

***

The last preparations were made, and Honor watched from the bridge of the _Paul Tankersley_ as they approached where the HMS _Manticore_ was stationed. She hadn't let go of him. He was coming back with her, him and Bel and Taura and a good assortment of the Dendarii that had followed her for five years.

Nimitz spooled off her shoulder, coming down from his great height to meet his mate. She sensed the echoes of Samantha's mindspeech to him. Both 'cats sat nose to nose, staring deeply into each others' eyes. She glanced down at the odd behavior and raised an eyebrow at Miles, who shrugged with a strained smile. His mood seemed to have improved somewhat since their departure from Barrayar, but there were still dark undercurrents. Not unusual, her husband had always been somewhat bipolar.

"Are you coming to the flagship with me?"

"Nah, I need to ride herd on Bel," Miles grinned. His tone was light, but she knew he disliked the endless ceremony of Manticoran embarkings and disembarkings. He reached down to pat Nimitz, and then picked Samantha up with an 'oof'.

"You take care of her, you hear?" he said scoldingly to Nimitz, who nodded solemnly at him.

***

Miles looked at the impeller plot on the bridge of the _Paul Tankersley_. The soap-bubble sails of the HMS _Manticore_ caught the Necklin-tuned grav wave, and the ship vanished.

He glanced back at Taura and then reached down with a hand and placed it reassuringly on Samantha's shoulders. "It'll be okay," he muttered. The crew began their preparations for the transit and Miles swung into the chair in front of the communications console, supervising _Ariel_ in its docking bay as it patiently waited out the minutes until the terminus stabilized. "You ready, Bel?"

"Just about," the hermaphrodite said. Samantha gave Miles a nod. Everything was in place. "Once the sails are deployed, we'll activate transit to Manticore on your mark."

"Belay that, Captain," Miles said. Behind him, Taura's stunner snapped up, fired.

Fired again. Again, again, again.

***

A superdreadnought destabilized the Junction for longer than a small craft. Honor waited for the _Paul Tankersley_ to reappear behind them as they ghosted away on their assigned vector.

The appointed time came. It didn't appear. She waited another twenty seconds. Nothing.

"Admiral," one of her subordinates hesitantly addressed her.

"He's not coming," Honor said quietly, in sudden realization. And then, louder. "He's not coming." Her mind raced as she stared at the display.

_He's stolen my ship,_ was her first blank thought. She'd integrated his people into her armsman detail. They'd earned it, after Hades. But those manning her yacht were nearly a quarter his. A sudden betrayal, a quick seizure. She could picture it now, in her head. Had he killed those that would not submit?

_He's stolen my __**son**__!_

Her eyes hardened. Without another word, she walked off the flag bridge.

***

His letter was with the diplomatic correspondence, as she'd known it would be. A simple envelope, with _Honor_ scrawled in small letters in the upper corner. The back flap was indented with his maple leaf-and-mountains seal, highlighted by a dark brown stain.

_Milady,_ it began.

_This is not a confession and this is not an apology. All of the oaths I made to you, I have kept and will keep. I was bound to my duty before we met, and I remain bound._

_I have seen how you wage war with wasteful profligacy, furiously spending men and metal as if neither had any worth to you. Power in search of purpose, strength in search of wisdom. From my perspective, it's baffling. You are wealthy beyond measure, yet you have not found a way to wage __peace__. (Collective you, there. I'm including Shannon's side.)_

_This decision was not a sudden one, but crystallized over years of observation. I do not believe Manticore is capable of living in peace with my worlds beyond the mirror junction. You think of strength in superdreadnought squadrons, in tonnage and firepower. Would you respect us any better than you do the Medusans, or Samantha's people? I may be wrong. I do not have the luxury to assume I am wrong._

_Our apparent weaknesses, of course, are nothing of the sort. In the hundred years before my birth, my planet advanced a thousand years. We were an abandoned pre-industrial world, but we fought the Cetagandan Empire and won. Eighty years ago, my grandfather was a horse cavalry officer. Fifty years ago, my father served aboard the first Barrayaran-constructed warship. We became the equals of our adversaries, yet we never compromised who we were to do so._

_By the measure of the time since Nelson and Napoleon, you are perhaps a thousand years ahead of us. In another hundred years, Honor, we will be beyond you. There are ways in which we already are. This is not a threat, nor a declaration of war. It is a declaration of peace._

_It is the agreement of the Beta Colony, the Clans As One Clan, and the Barrayaran Imperium, our side of your Junction will be interdicted for a hundred Old Earth years. All stranded Manticoran citizens will be generously provided for. When the allotted time has run, we will each see what the other has become._

_You have likely realized by this point that I was never a mercenary. There is far more that I must say to you, but I find myself unable to put any of it into words. I will say only this: when the stars are right, we will meet again._

_And I will not forget._

_Your obedient servant,_

_Miles Naismith Vorkosigan  
Lieutenant (Imperial Security)  
Emperor's Own Dendarii Mercenaries, Commanding_

Beside his neat signature, there was a treecat handprint in blue ink.

Her expression was as still as glass when she returned to her flag bridge. People looked at her with fleeting glances and then jerked their gazes back to their consoles to avoid her notice.

"Have this sent to Admiral Givens at ONI," Honor said softly and emotionlessly, handing the envelope to her chief of staff.

The man nodded, and got out of her way as she strode back to look at the tactics console. Her hands, real and artificial, clasped themselves behind her back as she stared unseeingly at it.

_Hell hath no fury..._


	7. SVV Technical Commentary

**_Short Victorious Vor_ Technical Commentary**

**Worlds apart**

I should first mention that I wrote this very hastily in response to a ficathon prompt. It was actually a 'How Much for Just the Planet' prompt, so it properly should have been a musical comedy ending with a pie fight. I didn't quite manage that, but I tried to do the concept justice.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized the fundamental space opera assumptions made are very similar and not a problem in merging the universe. Both are pretty classic space opera. The weapons used roughly match up and the physics hacks are similar. The forms of FTL used are different but non-contradictory. It's mostly the authorial approach that differs, and that was mostly what I tried to comment on. It was, ah, necessarily a parody.

My first assumption has to be that everything in both universes works properly, except when explicitly defended against. So Honorverse characters are adequately defended against their local truth serum that doesn't work very well to begin with, but have no innate immunity to fast-penta. At the same time, your average Honorverse countermissile will destroy the Ariel (although laser warheads don't work at all). Honorverse plasma weapons ('energy torpedoes') are high-powered enough to overload the average plasma mirror, and nothing Miles can do can get through an impeller drive band at all.

The 'how' of the crossover exploits the relatively unique astronomical feature of the Manticoran Junction. For the purposes of this fic it's the navel left from the budding off of the Honorverse as a parallel daughter universe around our time. The two universes have run at slightly different clockrates since then. When the budding occurs, time runs much faster in the daughter universe for a brief period, exponentially decaying back to 'normal'. The Honorverse is still running a few days or weeks per century 'faster', but the rates are currently similar. Other Honorverse-style wormholes are much older (less routes), and are scarred-over remnants of a similar process.

**Philosophies of war**

The Honorverse approach to war in this timeframe is fairly simple: there is no problem that cannot be solved by building larger quantities of bigger ships with better technology and using them to throw more missiles at things. Casualties quickly reach absurd levels, orbital infrastructure is leveled on a regular basis, and no planet is safe.

The Nexus, by contrast, is a place where defensive tech has consistently leapfrogged offensive tech. The structure of the wormhole network allows for deep defenses and discourages war. There's only a few possible points of attack for most systems, and they're easily fortified. War does exist, but it rarely touches planets unless the contest is utterly one-sided or a new wormhole is discovered. Larger, more advanced planets develop biowarfare deterrents to keep the peace. Ships are small, fleets are small.

Total deaths from a serious Nexus interplanetary war might be a few tens of thousands, while the death count from a single Honorverse engagement might be as high as two million.

Needless to say, the consequences of unregulated tech transfer at this point would be total chaos. Both sides are keenly interested in regulating the tech transfer to their advantage.

**Comparative advantage**

The basic armament of the two sides is nearly identical - lasers (obsolete in the Nexus), plasma, gravitic manipulation, nuclear weaponry. The differences are major, though, and that's what makes things interesting.

Advantages of the Nexus side include:

* The Necklin Drive. In systems connected to the nexus, inter-system travel is trivially easy. Most Nexus-style wormholes are in or near the inner system. Depending on the exact circumstances, Nexus wormhole travel can be much faster than hyper (or infinitely less so).

* Boost. While Nexus accelerations are slower than Honorverse accelerations, they're reasonable on their own, and high-energy enough to be inconsistent with a pure reaction drive. Whatever technology they're using is less effective at higher masses, but can push a fast courier or the Ariel at over 100G for endurance stretches (personal calculations from The Vor Game).

* The Sword-swallower. This Betan laser shield has managed to completely obsolete laser weaponry in the Nexus, and allows a Nexus warship to redirect some incoming fire offensively. Given the advantages of lasers in combat, the fact that nobody's built a laser on the Nexus side high-powered enough to overcome this is enough evidence IMHO that it should be effective even against Honorverse-scale weapons

* Plasma mirrors. Plasma mirrors accomplish much the same thing as the above, except with plasma. In contrast with the Sword-swallower, plasma mirrors aren't yet a mature tech and it's possible to overload them. As such. Honorverse capital-ship plasma weapons probably should be reasonably effective.

* Power tech. This advantage is mostly on the miniaturation front, and is an inference given a) how advanced Nexus energy control tech is, and b) the presense in the Nexus of antimatter on a useful scale. So far as absolute power generation goes, the largest Honorverse ships can almost certainly put out more power because they're so much bigger.

* Biotechnology. Nexus polities are much more advanced in this than any of the major Honorverse players, because the Honorverse has an active cultural taboo against it. Necklin Drive implants are both high level biotech and a necessary component for Nexus FTL. They'd be difficult-to-impossible for any Honorverse polity to reproduce without help. Even the Masadans don't seem to be quite up to Nexus levels.

* Fast-penta. This interrogation drug is universally effective enough to be legally admissible and a major part of Nexus society. It's a very powerful tool, both for intel and counter-intel work.

Advantages of the Honorverse side include:

* Scale. Goes without saying. Nexus polities don't have much strategic depth if their existing defenses are useless.

* Hyper drive. The Honorverse can get to any planet, not just those planets connected to the wormhole Nexus.

* Impeller drive. Honorverse ships have superior accelerations and superior weaponry. No native Nexus defense exists against an impeller drive missile.

* Prolong. People live longer in the Honorverse, accelerating population growth and increasing institutional memory

* Treecats. Fuzzy empathic animal companions, fairly rare but can be useful in a pinch.

**Refitting the Ariel**

_So what have we learned here, children? Miles asked, sprawled in a station chair in the quarters Lieutenant Volynkin shared with Pilot Officer Padget. Bel, Volynkin, Padget, and the Ariel's senior engineers rounded out the officer quorum._

_Sword-swallower works with the impellers up, Bel said._

_I know the techs were worried about that one, Miles said. To be honest, I probably should have dropped the wedge when they were a half-minute out. Were we able to determine if the rings can take a hit?_

_Radiation shielding is still not providing complete protection on that one protruding node in the fore ring for some angles of fire, but that's something that turned up in the refit, one of the engineers said. We don't have the parts to extend coverage that far out, because our original hull shape has changed. No direct hits on the rings most headed into our path and fired down our axis, though a few chose a side angle. The Sword-swallower handled everything with no bleedover to the radiation shields._

_Miles nodded. Their refit had been immensely complicated by the need to run the Necklin rods through their impeller ring, and the geometry of the Ariel itself, which was wider for its length than most impeller drive vessels but also somewhat less massive. _

_It was fundamentally and hilariously a round hole/square peg problem. The Ariel's cross section near its bow and stern resembled a rounded lozenge. The two impeller rings, meanwhile, needed to be perfectly circular, with nothing between their exterior surface and cold space. The local engineers had initially suggested cutting deep into the hull and installing rings of about twenty meters diameter. Bel had instantly vetoed this. The Ariel's twin Necklin rods ran at that depth, stretching the entire length of the vessel from bow to stern. Fragile and irreplaceable, they were the heart of any jump ship and could not be cut or moved._

_Quite aside from the Necklin issue, every bit of internal space in the Ariel was put to productive use. The impeller rings had to be larger, large enough to safely circle the rod housings. After much haggling, they'd ended up as close to the natural contours of the hull as possible, recessed in some places and protruding gently in others. This was an enormously less energy-efficient set-up, but if they didn't need to run the boost engines they had power to burn._

_"Okay, but we can't assume that there won't ever be any bleedover," Miles said. "What's our contingency planning? Can we jury-rig something out of local gear? Can we take the damn node there out, will that solve anything?"_

An impeller drive doesn't increase the combat abilities of the Ariel that much, but it does increase versitility. Nexus travel becomes much more efficient, with each hop being shorter. Defense doesn't increase that much - the Ariel remains adequately defended against standard Honorverse anti-ship armament and poorly defended against anti-small-craft armament. Fortunately for Miles and the Ariel, Weber's Hades set-up negates the normal advantages of capital ships and lets a small, undetected in-system vessel do a lot of damage.

**Shifting sands**

_"It's like we're stuck in a Napoleonic Wars pastiche," Bel said._

_There was an increasingly uncomfortable silence._

_"Oh, God. We are, aren't we."_

Both universes diverge due to Miles's presence in the Honorverse. Caslet and Jourdain remain as Manticoran POWs. Miles's Barrayaran identity is declared formally dead. But some of the divergences with the most serious plot impact occurs offscreen, when Esther McQueen taking Shannon Foraker on her staff in the aftermath of the Hades debacle. Things change. People change things. The Betans and the Barrayarans monopolize hyper and divide otherwise unreachable Nexus worlds between them. Cordelia Naismith takes a one way trip through the interdicted Junction after her husband's death to see her granddaughters. Grayson spends time under Havenite occupation.

A hundred years in the future, all of Miles's generation will be dead except him and Taura and the Nexus will have changed past all recognition. The major players in the Honorverse, however, remain the same (despite serious attrition), and their memories are long.

**A peculiar marriage**

_"That's not the correct question, young Aral." Count Vorkosigan said dryly. "The correct question is 'was she tall?'"_

So, Miles and Honor. Does this work? Well, sort of...

Miles's attraction to Honor doesn't need explaining. Vast Treecat Conspiracy aside, what Honor sees in Miles is a little more complicated. From her perspective he's really young, really pushy, badly in need of an attitude adjustment, and complicating her life to no end. But she can also sense how much he adores her in his own messed up way, and, well, Honor's taste in men has never been stellar.

More importantly, he starts out having no idea who she is. He's not in love with the Salamander, her reputation doesn't really mean much to him, he hasn't seen her dragged through the press. He's not in her chain of command. And unlike pretty much everyone else in the universe at this stage, he's also brave enough to actually ask her out.

Tongue-in-cheek, familial hobbit kink's also a possibility.

Neither of them really start out as seeing this as a serious relationship, though. Honor's in a somewhat more rational phase of her existence - she's not immediately looking to settle down and start a family, she's still traumatized over Paul, and she has a job to do.

Miles attitude towards Honor is... mmm. Acceptability as a long-term mate for him is tied unbreakably to willingness on her part to be a housewife, and Honor is an Elli, not an Ekaterin. He knows this. And Miles has never been wholly admirable in the way he treats his Ellis - see the bit in Memory where he's rationalizing to himself that cheating on Elli with Taura doesn't really count because she won't become Lady Vorkosigan.

So of course, throw Honor's accidental pregnancy at them and see what happens. It's only twins to highlight what an obstetrical moron Honor's mom is, because There. Are. No. Words. I'm well aware that Weber may not actually intend for Allison Harrington to be in the 130cm range, but dammit, since he keeps describing her as barely over 2/3 Honor's height I'm going to keep making fun of him for it. By comparison, Miles is a little over 3/4 Honor's height, which comes out to slightly under boob level.

My explanation for why this happened doesn't quite match Weber's, but it makes more sense and requires a lot less idiocy on everybody's part. It was mentioned that they were disabling all her implants.

Miles, of course, desperately wants kids in general. Not necessarily with Honor, but it's a driving ambition for him. He wants herds of them, and he wants an heir. On top of that, his inbuilt Barrayaran male programming starts to comes to the fore.

Honor kind of wants kids (not necessarily with Miles) but has no time or energy to spend on that sort of thing. But suddenly she's recuperating for a year and a half, pregnant with twins, and being a mother doesn't seem so immediately impossible after all. The twins get tubed because Honor's still in bad shape right then and it's the only sensible thing to do with a twin pregnancy, but she secretly really wants to do a body-birth. Miles, seeing this, realizes a way both of them can get what they want, proposes marriage, and talks her into gestating Aral for the remainder of her recuperation. The twins and Aral were born closer together than a natural gestation would allow. This is in-character for Miles - he honestly believes in his own marriage that having six children at once would be admirably efficient.

Honor did not stay home to raise the kids after her teaching stint was over. Miles was the obvious choice for primary caregiver. Not only did he eagerly volunteer, White Haven effectively banned him from accompanying Honor to the front so he was -really bored-. Three babies probably solved that...

The marriage, by the way, was a secular, limited-term one until Aral hit twenty. Most of the reasons for formalizing the relationship were practical ones, because of the danger inherent in Honor's job and inheritance concerns.

Honor's daughters had a difficult time as young women. Her younger daughter, Gloria, married a handsome foreigner and fled Grayson and Manticore at the first opportunity. Her eldest, Liz, became a ferocious devotee of the Church of Humanity Unchained. She inherited her father's cunning and charisma as well as her mother's ruthlessness and tactical genius, but her brief career in the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps was interrupted when her undiagnosed schizophrenia became an issue. After Grayson was forced to surrender during yet another round of Manticoran-Havenite wars, Liz masterminded the guerrilla resistance, pitting herself against both the Havenite occupation and the Grayson establishment. Against all odds, she ended up the victor. Her assassination of Protector Bernard and subsequent usurpation of the Protectorate seriously strained relations between mother and daughter.

Aral Alfred Vorkosigan underwent emergency gene therapy as a child to dial down his Meyerdahl Beta modifications, which Miles considered undesirable and dangerous. After an abortive attempt to join the Imperial Army Choir was scuppered by his father, he entered the Barrayaran Military Academy. He spent a few years in the ceremonial horse cavalry before being obliged to retire upon inheriting the District. Aral has been an active participant in Barrayaran historical re-enactment societies since he was a teen, a hobby his father views as hopelessly prole.

Gloria has two daughters in their sixties, while Aral has three sons in their fifties and two grandsons. None of Honor's children are treecat adoptees, although Aral's second son Thierry is.

**Manticoran counterintelligence**

So the Manticorans are not oblivious here. Miles was immediately pegged as trouble by everyone concerned, and deliberately excluded from the military parts of Honor's life. Her Dendarii armsmen were given more slack by Grayson, but again Miles didn't get the benefit of that.

The Ariel was permitted to accompany Honor as an auxiliary craft, but it was only allowed to dock with Grayson vessels. Until Hades, nobody on Honor's end including Honor viewed it as a serious threat to anything. Afterward, she made judicious use of what abilities she learned of.

Miles was given the brief opportunity to attend courses at Sagamani Island because Manticore wanted a better chance to examine how his head worked. At that point he had, er, sufficiently proven his skills and they wanted an idea of what he was made of.

The Manticorans successfully stole Nexus-style stunner and nerve disruptor tech. They also ended up with an reasonably good idea of what Nexus tech can do. Miles ran an effective misinformation campaign, but Honor was paying attention on her trip through his side and managed to correct most of Manticore's most grievous misapprehensions.

Miles got most of his best intelligence by insinuating himself into the administration of Blackbird Yard. The idea that a wife might have a legal existence independent of her husband is pretty new on Grayson. Clinkscales was easily convinced to view Miles as a future Regent for Honor or their kids.

**The treecat perspective**

One night, on Barrayar, Miles took Samantha aside and had a little chat with her. Well, them, rather, because Samantha and Nimiitz are a mated pair of treecats and thus not wholly distinct individuals.

This was a rather one-sided chat, with Miles per usual projecting a lot of his own opinions onto his treecat. While Miles never viewed Sam as shoulder-furniture, he vastly underestimated her on occasion, and she long had her own plans.

Samantha is interested in treecat expansion. She understands that treecats are horribly vulnerable on Sphinx, and that they need to spread out to avoid getting killed by the next passing space battle. In Weber's Honorverse, this leads to her starting a treecat colony on Grayson. Here, it leads to her playing monolith on the other Sphinx and converting them to her ideas instead. The treecats on her own Sphinx are not happy about this unilateral breach of security. See 'Speak With Humans'.

**Why Miles did that...**

Miles was being intentionally provocative with his letter. His intent was to assign the blame appropriately. This isn't Barrayar forcing him to leave her, it's him betraying her. Miles wants Honor's fury to be directed at the right person - him (as opposed to his planet. This is also behind his maneuvering to make his son the next Count Vorkosigan instead of him). When the time comes, he's willing to take the fall for it.

**...and how he got away with it**

I've gotten some flack for 'letting Miles walk all over Honor', but I suspect my critics would be even less happy with the reverse version of this story (the one where Miles convinces Honor to tag along obediently back to Barrayar with him and raise his kids for a couple years while he borrows her warship to take it on adventures with the Dendarii). I could point out that Honor never noticed her treecat spying on her for decades, or that Miles and Honor actually didn't spend much time together overall because he was stuck on Grayson. But basically it comes down to Weber's storytelling choices.

In the Honorverse, Honor attracts and converts rivals and enemies and adds them to her entourage all the time. This is normal procedure for her, and once converted, they stay loyal. She's never been faced with being betrayed by someone who is not a cartoon villain. It would never occur to her that Miles could betray her, the same way it never would occur to her that Clinkscales could betray her. She's a David Weber character and expects everyone around her to be too.

He's not. That's the difference.


End file.
